Weekly Film Blog (#3)

Running on Empty. The Popes make running away from the FBI a fun and exciting thing to do, especially with the name changing and different hairstyles every few months, disguising under a different background and traveling to wherever remote town they could land to. However, this sort of lifestyle has taken a toll on each member of the family both emotionally and physically. The father, Arthur, turns out to be a good leader of the pack with parental instincts that has helped them to survive the years in fugitive. It is interesting to observe that although the father has given the freedom for their two children to roam around the neighbourhood and attend school, there are also other matters that he keeps tight in reins in order to minimise their exposure. For example, Danny learns to know that class photos should be avoided. This instinct, as Danny puts it, 'he has this feeling, he just knows' is not just mere instincts. Years worth of experience has programmed Arthur's recognition heuristics to provide him with the information that he needs to assess their family's safety concerns. (He knew to avoid that shady guy, Gus, with his plans to rob a bank with guns, he knew that going to private events would only increase vulnerability to exposure). 

From there, the theme that is the foundation of this film is trust and care for each other to survive. Because the children and wife knows that every decision made by Arthur is done out of concern for their life, they trust their fathers judgement. Arthur, knowing Danny is dating with a local town girl, did not show any objection, despite the possibility of Danny exposing too much information because he trusts Danny to be able to keep their secret safe. (The only time where his father was wrong because Danny did eventually talk to Lorna about it).  Trust persists till the end of the film between Anna and her father, where they discussed the possibility of giving Danny his second chance at life. The father, despite not seeing his child for more than a decade, trusts that Anna is trying to make amends for her mistakes as much as Anna trusts her father enough to know that her father would not report her immediately when she came out from hiding. Although, the interdependency between them is lessen with Danny's decision to go to Julliard, Anna's decision to reach out to her father for help, and Arthurs decision to allow Danny to be in charge of his own life decisions. 

The mother, Anna, is a strong character in the film. She's tired of that kind of living and she's made plans to turn herself in but somehow, with that much of emotional fatigue she is still loyal to her family, wanting to stay with Arthur, Danny and the little boy, keeping their family together and safe. Especially in the scandalous scene with Gus, it is a wonder how her constant cognitive dissonance had not have completely exhausted her! 

Danny, an adolescent mature enough to understand the father's dependency on their family, eventually figured out his life goals and pursued it despite the father's objections. His coming of age story (from adolescence to young adulthood, according to Erikson's theory) is inspiring as he struggles to balance between his desire for romance, family and education. He was juggling both issues of Identity vs Role Confusion and Intimacy vs Isolation. Being constantly changing names and identity and growing up to live in a life that is not his was difficult because there was no foundation for him to built on. (Yes, he knows his own name, yes he knows what he likes but putting who he really is in the back burner while living as an outcast on the outside is not a healthy environment for an adolescent that requires a stable sense of self. He also struggles to be the kind of man that Arthur hopes him to be (that is loyal to the family no matter what) when he has life goals he wants to achieve. This brings to the next issue where he wants to build an intimate relationship with Lorna and keep the caring relationship he has with his family but he can't have both, as choosing one side will result in isolation in the other. But that's the risk you've got to take living in on the run, right? 

Siti Nur Asyiqin