Films all parents should watch with their teenager
A late summer movie binge proves to be surprisingly educational
My wife went on a four-day outof-state retreat recently, leaving me at home with our 15-yearold son. We had lots of free time, because it was summer break, so I decided we should binge on a little movie tutorial. I wanted to expose my son to the movies I regard as essential viewing because of their cultural and historical relevance.
Witness (1985). My son objected at first: “A detective story? In Amish country? There’s a barn-raising scene? Are you kidding me, Dad?” I implored him to at least watch the first few minutes with me. It worked. He was totally drawn in to the Harrison Ford movie, and I think it’s because “Witness” is not only about a man trying to solve a murder, but also about someone immersing himself in a culture that is completely different from his own.
Léon: The Professional (1994). Gary Oldman plays a psychotic, drug-addled Drug Enforcement Administration agent intent on hunting down and eliminating a very young Natalie Portman. Standing in his way is her neighbour, an illiterate Italian hit man named Léon (Jean Reno). It is a violent movie with many powerful scenes, including when Portman stands at Léon’s front door after her entire family has been gunned down. She begs him to take her in. Every young person needs to know that at some point they will have to choose whether to help someone even though it may put them at personal risk.
Hoosiers (1986). This is a fictionalized story of the 1954 Mi- lan High School team that won the Indiana boys’ basketball state championship despite the small size of the school. I watched it with my older son 20 years ago and stopped the video a dozen times, asking him, “OK, now why does the coach toss those players out of their first practice, what point is he trying to make?”
All the President’s Men (1976). We watched this one with my wife, a former journalist who also taught college journalism and made every class watch this film. Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman star as reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. The two are absolutely dogged in their pursuit of the truth.
They were dismissed, mocked and threatened, but they followed the story wherever it led, which was to the downfall of a corrupt president. In a time when our country’s leadership is calling journalists “the enemy of the people,” it is good to watch reporters so dedicated to their profession.
To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). This film, based on Harper Lee’s 1960 novel, can help teens understand the complicated history of race relations in the United States and why we are at the point we are now. It is a movie about injustice and how deeply racism has been ingrained in U.S. culture.
Norma Rae (1979). Only as an adult was I introduced to Sally Field as a tough-as-nails union organizer in this movie. She plays a single mother working in a cotton mill in North Carolina. When her father dies on the factory floor, she becomes emboldened to start a union drive. Management threatens to fire her; that does not stop her. They do fire her; that does not stop her.