If you're reading this and have no idea what that is, let me tell you about this wonderful movie. It's about a husband and wife that love each other dearly and want to take that love and make it into a baby, but they can't. So one night, they decide to take paper and make their perfectly not-so-perfect baby. And then they bury the list in the backyard.
The writer of the movie was wise enough to not explain everything that happens or why it happens or really how or any of that, but somehow a storm comes, and the list is made into a boy named Timothy.
The story that follows is about Timothy fulfilling all of the things on the list, but not always in the way the parents expected it to pan out. Every time he fulfills a bullet on the list, one of his leaves falls off.
Oh, right. He has leaves growing out of his legs.
SPOILER WARNING (but also predictable).
As expected, once the leaves are all gone, Timothy must go as well.
And that's where I first started crying. The reason I lost it here was because he tells the parents he has to go, and they both say something along the lines of "We can do better. We will be better parents. We are just getting used to this." And Timothy laughs and says, "No, you are ready. You've always been ready. Never give up." That got me.
But the movie goes on for about another ten minutes after this scene. And yes, I bawled for the remainder of the film.
Timothy decides before he goes to give the leaves that have fallen off of his legs to various people he's met throughout his short life. The explanation of why he chooses the people he does is priceless.
But what really got me, what the real kicker was is the very last scene.
The parents adopt another child.
The movie is simple and sweet and G-rated which tells you something right off the bat. It's not exactly date night material.
But man, it got me good.
Funny thing that I started thinking about after I watched it and listened to the end credits song sung by Glen Hansard five hundred times over, some of the movies that have really gotten me over the years have been about adoption.
One of my all-time favourite movies is called Martian Child and is all about a writer adopting a boy who thinks he's from Mars. The second-to-last scene in this movie always makes me cry like a small child.
One of my favourite movies as a kid was Angels In The Outfield. I watched it a few weeks ago for the first time as an Adult and I don't think I ever realized as a kid that while the movie is about angels helping out a baseball team, it's really about adoption.
And yes, when I watched it again, it made me cry when Danny Glover adopts the two boys at the end. I also started crying when Joseph Gordon-Levitt's dad leaves him at the court house and he's calling out to his dad to come back.
I realize that I'm a pretty young 23 year old and I don't have a boyfriend (or, let's be real, any chance of a boyfriend considering the catches in Hickory) let alone a husband, so kids seriously should be the very very last thing on my mind.
But after watching movies like The Odd Life Of Timothy Green or Martian Child or Angels In The Outfield, it makes me want to adopt when the times comes.
John Cusack, who plays the man who adopts the martian child in Martian Child, says something really great at one point in the movie: "I understand the reasons for not wanting to bring a child into this world, but there's no rule about not loving a child already in the world."
That sums up all reasons for wanting to adopt.
I've never been one to want kids of my own. I'm kind of like Robin on How I Met Your Mother; I don't want kids, but probably if I was ever told my a doctor that I couldn't have kids, I would immediately want them. (Side note, the episode where Robin found out she couldn't have kids ripped my heart out.)
Honesty time: I figured I would spend all my time as a parent of my own kids worrying that I would A) drop them and kill them as infants or B) screw them up really bad as teenagers.
But with kids that are adopted, here's my thing about both A and B: I would adopt them when they are in elementary school so no worries about dropping them, and if their biological parents have either abandoned them or died, well, I can't do any worse than that, right? It can only be uphill then.
I don't know what will happen in 5 or 10 or 30 years. But if I keep watching movies about adoption, I think I have a pretty safe bet on what will probably happen.
Absolutely delightful, Moose.
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