One True Thing
Directed by: Carl Franklin
Written by: Karen Croner, based on the book of the same name by Anna Quindlen
Starring: Meryl Streep, Renée Zellweger, William Hurt
Before You Watch
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Before You Watch 〰️
I saw One True Thing when it was first released in 1998. I was 16 and I went to see it with my mother.
My relationship with her has always been “complicated” and it is interesting to remember watching this with her in the Town & Country mall AMC movie theater in Miami but not remembering anything else about the experience other than that we both cried a lot, during and after. And that we drove home in silence. It makes sense that we were both speechless – the bond between mothers and daughters is so strong and that never goes away no matter how much time or trauma shapes it.
Questions to hold as you watch:
How has your perception of your mother or parent changed as you’ve aged?
After the Movie
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After the Movie 〰️
This movie is a reminder of how hard we are on each other – women in general, but especially mothers and daughters.
I think so much of it is because our work as women, in taking care of each other, our families, our friends, and rarely ourselves, is often invisible work. It is so seamless and under the surface that it goes unnoticed and taken for granted. And yet it is the work that makes all other work possible, and it is the love that sustains our foundations. I saw my mother differently after watching this movie. I saw how much I took – and take – for granted in all that she does, and realized that the same will be true of me and my family, and only other women will ever notice it. Only they will understand and smile to themselves because this is what it means to be a woman.
Questions to reflect on after you watch:
What invisible work do you do in your own life?
And what invisible work do you observe around you?
And what are some ways you can acknowledge both?