American Teen (2008)

Directed by award-winning film maker Nanette Burnstein (On the Ropes, The Kid Stays in the Picture) the documentary American Teen was filmed in Warsaw, Indiana over the course of the 2005-2006 school year. Warsaw appears to be the type of place that Hollywood loves to mythologize, the typical Midwestern town where the biggest event is the upcoming homecoming game and the rest of the world barely exists.

For an entire school year, Burnstein focused her camera lens on five Warsaw high school students during their senior year. All of them fall into familiar archetypes that you will recognize no matter how long ago you grabbed your diploma-the princess, the jock, the geek, the rebel and the heartthrob.

First we have Megan Krizmanich, the school’s queen bee. She’s pretty and popular, the daughter of a surgeon and student council president. She’s also a “mean girl” who even turns her venom on her own friends.

Jake Tusing is the kid no one notices in high school. He’s a band geek and addicted to video games. He’s also got a lethal case of acne and a mouth full of braces but that won’t deter him from finding a girlfriend.

Colin Clemens is the star basketball player. Instead of being the stereotypical jerk athlete, Colin is nice all-around guy. But underneath his easygoing nature, is desperation. He needs a scholarship to pay for college.

Hannah Bailey is the rebellious alternative girl. Hannah is artsy, creative and plays guitar in a band. Her biggest goal in life is to get out of Warsaw.

Mitch Reinholt is the dreamboat. Like Colin, he’s a jock and runs with the cool crowd. He has a killer smile and on a superficial level seems to be just another vapid pretty boy, until he falls for Hannah.

During the school year, the kids have moments of pure joy, and moments of self-doubt. They have their triumphs and tribulations. All of this is captured by the unblinking eye of Burnstein’s camera.

Early in the school year, Hannah is dumped by her boyfriend. This causes her to go into a tailspin of intense depression. She misses so many days of school that graduation hangs in the balance. Megan’s bitchiness goes out of control. When she gets her hands on a friend’s compromising photo, she e-mails it to everyone at school. Her friend is deemed a skank and becomes the school pariah. Told by his dad that he needs to get a scholarship to afford college (or go in the Army), Colin becomes a selfish player on the court, and causes conflict with his team mates.

Jake awkwardly looks for a girlfriend, and finally finds one among the freshman girls. But she dumps him for the band’s studmuffin, and Jake goes through a cringe-worthy attempt to find a new girlfriend.

At one of her gigs, Mitch finds himself attracted to Hannah, and they start going out. However, later on he caves into peer pressure. After all, their separate castes should never even talk to each other, let alone date. So Mitch breaks up with Hannah via text message.

Family also comes into play in American Teen. During the movie, we find out that Megan’s family suffered a horrible tragedy. She also feels a great deal of pressure to get into Notre Dame, the alma mater of most of her family, including her successful father. Colin’s father embarrasses his son by working as an Elvis impersonator part-time. It doesn’t take much to embarrass one’s kids, but being an Elvis impersonator really takes the cake.

But it’s Hannah’s parents who truly broke my heart. Her father is distant and her mother is a manic depressive. When Hannah tries to convince both of them the importance of going to San Francisco to study film, her parents tell her that she shouldn’t expect much out of life. When Hannah’s mother coldly says to her, “You’re not that special,” I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I can only imagine how Hannah felt.

During the film we see kids ignoring the teachers, hanging out with their friends, yawning during class, drinking too much, talking about sex, dancing at prom, and sending text messages. These kids pretty much do what a lot of us did in high school. Okay, some of us our too old to have sent text messages in high school. And interspersed throughout the film, are several animated segments that convey the dreams and desires of these kids.

At the end, we see Colin, Megan, Hannah, Jake and Mitch graduate and go on with their post-high school lives. We also learn what they are up in the two years since they graduated, but I’ll refrain on sharing this information.

For the most part, American Teen, is engrossing, suspenseful and affecting. I ended up caring about these kids, even Megan, who I wanted to smack most of the time. However, just because this is a documentary doesn’t mean that some parts didn’t seem staged. For instance, after she feels she is backstabbed by another student council member over the prom theme, Megan defaces his house with toilet paper and homophobic graffiti. Would she have done this without the prodding of the ever present cameras? I’m not sure. Then again, in a time where kids expose their crazy revelry on various social media and on YouTube, I shouldn’t be surprised to see a scene like this. And anyone familiar with reality TV shows know that what is supposed to be “real” can be as easily manipulated as any fictional TV show or movie.

In the end, American Teen gives us the old adage that the more things change the more they stay the same. Pretty much anyone who went to high school will be able to relate in some way to these kids and the cliques that define them.

American Teen’s Nanette Burnstein

Sunshine Cleaning (2008)

Sunshine Cleaning, which briefly graced the big screens a few years back, is the story of the Lorkowski sisters who eke out a living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Amy Adams plays Rose. Rose once ruled the school as the head cheerleader and she also dated the quarterback. Unfortunately, the years post-graduation haven’t been so kind. She toils as a house cleaner and struggles to raise her offbeat son as a single mom. She’s also having an affair with her now-married high school sweetheart who works as a cop.

Emily Blunt plays Rose’s younger sister, Norah. Norah is the rebellious bad girl, with the tattoos, black eyeliner and shitty attitude to prove it. She parties all night and sleeps all day. And as the film begins she’s just been fired from her waitressing job, and has no other job prospects on the horizon.

On the advice of her ex-boyfriend, Rose begins a post-crime cleaning business and brings Norah on to help clean up scenes of murders, suicides and other deathly messes after the cops have finished their investigative work. It’s one thing clean up the homes of living people, but it’s quite different to clean up the blood, urine, feces, maggots and vomit of the deceased. But soon Rose and Norah learn there are very human stories among the gore.

At one home, Norah finds a fanny pack filled with photographs of a young girl. This young girl is the daughter of the deceased, and she’s still living in town. Norah starts stalking the woman (played by Mary Lynn Rajskub) and they end up forming an odd and awkward friendship. Rajskub’s character can’t quite figure out why Norah is so interested in her life, and during an embarrassing moment, she thinks Norah’s interest is sexual, and acts accordingly.

Meanwhile, Rose strikes up a friendship with the one-armed owner of an industrial cleaning products store named Winston (Clifton Collins, Jr.). Winston takes a liking to Rose’s son and he helps the two out when they get into a bind. But despite some of the success Rose is having with the business she can’t help but feel like a big loser, especially when she comes in contact with some of her old classmates who are now living successful lives and living in fancy McMansions, some of which Rose has cleaned. At a baby shower, Rose tries to explain her life to her old classmates, and her shame is unmistakable. As is the thinly veiled smugness and condescension of her fellow high school grads.

Rounding out the family is Rose and Norah’s father, a not always successful salesman, played by Alan Arkin. His love for his daughters never wavers, but it’s not always enough to keep things together. Especially, with a family secret about the girls’ mother that still haunts them as adults.

Sunshine Cleaning is a sweet film that will probably bring comparisons to another indie flick, Little Miss Sunshine (and not just because of the appearance of Alan Arkin and sunshine in the title). There is not one bad performance in the film, but this is truly Blunt and Adams’ film. And Adams continues to impress me. I’ve loved her since her Oscar-nominated turn in June Bug. I just know she’ll get that big prize one day.

Sunshine Cleaning also proves that there is validity in every job, even those without a fancy title or a huge paycheck. There can be grace in the moments of grotesque. This is best explained by Rose when she tells her old high school friends, “We come into people’s lives when they have experienced something profound and sad, and we help. In some way, we help.”

Look At Me (Comme Une Image-2004)

The French comedy of manners, Look at Me (Comme Une Image), centers on Lolita (Marilou Berry) and her famous writer father Etienne (Jeanne-Pierre Bacri). Lolita is plain and overweight, and assumes most people want to get to know her because of her father. And usually, she’s right. However, she does have one thing going for her, a lovely singing voice, and is taking voice lessons.

Unfortunately, her father is too wrapped up in his own world to take notice of his daughter. One of his books has just been made into his movie. He has a stunning second wife. And people are constantly vying for his attention. He has no interest in his insecure daughter, and seems almost ashamed of her. Lolita herself is not without her faults. She is distrustful of anyone who makes overtures of friendship. And at times her self-pity is off-putting.

Yet, Lolita does seem to have one bright light in her life-music. And her singing teacher Sylvia, played by Agnes Jaoui (who also directed and co-wrote the script) takes a special interest in Lolita. Initially, Sylvia’s interest is rather self-serving. Her husband, Pierre (Laurent Grevill) is a fledgling writer. Sylvia assumes if she befriends Lolita, she’ll introduce Pierre to her father, and Pierre’s writing career will finally get off the ground.

But it isn’t long before Sylvia realizes Lolita has a talent that must be nurtured, and that Lolita, herself, is worthy of attention and praise. Sylvia especially notices this when she and her husband are invited to Etienne’s country estate, and he berates everyone around him including Lolita.

At the same time Lolita’s musical talent is being developed, she begins a friendship with a young man named Sébastien (Keine Bouhiza). Sébastien is also a writer, and Lolita once again thinks his friendly overtures are only to connect with her father. Lolita tries to get her father to help Sébastien, too dense and insecure to realize Sebastien is actually interested in her, and her only. Yes, he’s a writer, but he’d rather concentrate on developing a writing project with his friends rather than be mentored by an egotistical blowhard like Etienne. Will Lolita wise up and realize Sébastien really likes her for her, and she has value all on her own?

Look at Me is at turns funny and mortifying. Ms. Berry is wonderful as Lolita, vulnerable, heartbreaking and all to easy to identify with all at once. At times you don’t know if you want to shake her or hug her. And you will find Mr. Bacri positively maddening as the selfish Etienne especially in one scene where he walks out of his daughter’s choral performance to take a phone call.

Look at Me takes an unflinching look at our narcissistic celebrity culture, especially once we learn those we worship often have feet of clay. It also examines how feeling like loser in a sea of success, fame, money and beauty that is so crippling we can barely break out the box we’ve put ourselves in.

Things Behind the Sun (2001)

For the past few years, singer/songwriter Sherry McGrale (Kim Dickens) shows up at the same house out of control and completely drunk. Just what is going on, and why does Sherry do this on the same day year after year?

In Things Behind the Sun, Sherry sings and writes music that is deeply personal and filled with raw emotion. Her most notable song about getting raped as a young girl is getting a lot of play on college radio, and the music magazines are starting to take notice of her.

Owen Richardson (Gabriel Mann) is a rock reporter with a vague connection to McGrale. He mentions to his editor (Roseanna Arquette) that he knows who raped Sherry, and she assigns a story to him to profile this up and coming singer with the tortured past.

Getting to Sherry for an interview is not easy. First, Owen has to deal with Sherry’s immensely protective manager Chuck (Don Cheadle). Chuck’s protection goes beyond the professional realm. Chuck and Sherry used to date, and Chuck still has feelings for her that are often put to the test when he sees how quickly she can degrade herself. Yet, he also knows this degradation is the consequence of her being violated so many years ago.

After some finagling, Owen finally gets his chance to talk to Sherry and possibly interview her for the magazine. Despite their past friendship, Sherry barely recognizes Owen. This is partly due to being in a drunken haze most of the time and also due to trying to bury the past.

But Sherry soon realizes who Owen is as he drops hints of their childhood friendship and their shared love of music. In fact, Owen probably wouldn’t be a writer without Sherry’s influence. But unfortunately, Sherry and Owen’s past also deals directly with Sherry’s rape. It was Owen’s older brother Dan (Eric Stoltz) who initially raped Sherry, and then forced Owen to violate Sherry, too. Will Owen’s confession further scar Sherry’s emotional wounds (and his own, too)? Or will it lead to some much needed healing for the both of them?

Things Behind the Sun could easily fall into Lifetime movie territory, but in the expert hands of the woefully underrated Alison Anders, it never does. Anders herself was a raped as a young girl, and bravely captures the raw degradation of sexual violence and its fall out. And though the ending is slightly pat and tidy, most of the film is raw and riveting. Most of this is due to the very honest performances. Dickens is brutally real as Sherry, victim and victimizer. Mann makes Owen sympathetic and pathetic at the same time. Cheadle is at turns nurturing and tough. And the late Elizabeth Peña brings a compassionate pathos as the current owner of the house where Sherry was raped. Dickens and Peña’s scenes are brief, yet commanding. In fact, Things Behind the Sun is a deeply potent film that combines tragedy and healing one that truly makes you think.

Retro Reels: The Women (1939)

Several years ago the remake of the movie classic The Women was released. Featuring an all-star cast, including Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Eva Mendes and Candace Bergen, this version of the original The Women was a modern take on friendship and frenemies, and love and betrayal among the wealthy socialites of Manhattan. It took 15 years for the remake of The Women to make it to the silver screen. Apparently, from some of the scathing reviews this version received, perhaps Hollywood should have waited another 15 years. A.O. Scott from the New York Times called it, “One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.” Ouch.

However, I highly recommend the 1939 original. Based on the 1936 play by Renaissance woman, Clare Boothe Luce, The Women was adapted for the screen by Anita Loos and Jane Murfin, and directed by the famous “women’s director” George Cukor. Like the 2008 remake, this version of The Women also boasted an all-star cast, including Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Joan Crawford and Paulette Goddard.

Norma Shearer plays Mary Haines, a seemingly happy wife and mother of husband Stephen and daughter, Little Mary. At a posh salon where Mary and her friends frequent, Mary’s friend and cousin, Sylvia Fowler (Rosalind Russell) learns some hot gossip. Mary’s husband is having an affair with a mankiller shopgirl named Crystal Allen played by Joan Crawford (who else?).

Well, what’s the good of gossip if it can’t be shared? Sylvia tells this gossip to Mary’s friends. They conspire to set Mary up with the manicurist who told Sylvia the sleazy news. While at this appointment, Mary hears the rumor that her husband and Crystal are having an affair. Though she tries to ignore this gossip, she can’t help but be suspicious. After all, Stephen has been working a lot of late nights.

After a trip to Bermuda to clear her head, Mary goes to a fashion show. While at the show, Mary learns Crystal is there. She finds Crystal in a dressing room trying on some of the clothing from the fashion show. Mary confronts Crystal about the affair. Instead of denying Mary’s charges, Crystal admits to the affair. She also tells Mary that Stephen is going to divorce her, and Crystal will soon be the next Mrs. Stephen Haines.

Not surprisingly, Mary is absolutely heartbroken. This horrifying news has legs, and before long Sylvia spills the beans to a local gossip columnist turning Mary’s marital drama into a tabloid scandal. Mary may be heartbroken but she’s not willing to be the fool in her husband’s folly. Mary decides to leave Stephen and she goes to Reno to obtain a quickie divorce.

While on a train to Reno, Mary befriends some women also on the way to Reno for quickie divorces. Among Mary’s new BFFs are Countess DeLave (Mary Boland) and former chorus girl Miriam Aarons (Paulette Goddard). And to Mary’s delight, she also runs into her good friend Peggy Day (Joan Fontaine).

Once Mary and her friends get to Reno they set up shop at a ranch and wait for their divorces to be finalized. The owner of the ranch, Lucy (Marjorie Main) is a bit rough around the edges, but she offers plenty of sage advice to the ladies. They all discuss life, love and marriage, both the good and the bad. The Countess even gets her groove back with a local cowboy named Buck Winston and plans to marry him once she’s a free woman.

Other secrets come out at the ranch. Miriam admits to an affair with Sylvia Fowler’s husband, yep, Mary’s backstabbing frenemy, and Miriam is going to marry Sylvia’s husband after she leaves Reno. Peggy reveals she is pregnant and the other women convince her to patch things up with her husband.

Before long Sylvia turns up in Reno, her husband leaving her for Miriam. Sylvia and Miriam meet up and the fur flies, with Mary breaking up the fight. Miriam tries to convince Mary to stall her divorce and go back to Stephen. Alas, it’s too late. Stephen soon calls Mary and tells her that he and Crystal have become husband and wife.

It is two years later, and Crystal is Mrs. Stephen Haines. However, once an adulterous slut, always an adulterous slut. Crystal is having an affair with Buck Winston who is now married to Countess DeLave (still with me?). Little Mary finds out about her stepmother’s trampy ways when she overhears Crystal talking on the phone with Buck. And that scheming Sylvia Fowler is now friends with Crystal. Once she finds out Crystal is cheating on Stephen with Buck, she figures this is some more gossip she can use in the near future.

At the same time, Mary is throwing a big bash to celebrate the Countess and Buck’s anniversary. After the bash is over, Mary is asked to go to another party by the Countess, Miriam and Peggy. But Mary is beat and decides she’ll stay home. While talking to her daughter, Little Mary, Mary learns that Stephen isn’t happily married to Crystal and Crystal is having an affair with Buck. Well, who can stay home after hearing this little tidbit? Mary dresses herself to the nines, heads off the party and is determined to get the truth out and Stephen back from Crystal’s clutches.

At the party, Mary gathers all the women into the ladies’ room. Taking no prisoners, Mary reveals to the Countess that Buck is sleeping with Crystal. She tells Crystal that Stephen is fed up with her. Mary manages to make Sylvia and Crystal enemies during this, and a local gossip columnist hears the women fight with each other. However, Crystal doesn’t care for Stephen anymore and informs Mary that she can have him. After all, Buck, who is now a successful radio star, can support her with his riches. Not so fast, the Countess claims. All of Buck’s success is due to the Countess’ money, and without it, he’s nothing. After learning this, Crystal realizes she needs to go to Reno to procure her own quickie divorce, and then it’s back to the perfume counter. Ultimately, our heroine Mary is victorious and she and Stephen reconcile and heal their broken family.

As I mentioned, the original version of The Women came out in 1939, one of the best years in the history of film. Though hugely successful both critically and commercially, it never garnered any Oscar nominations. The Women took a risk by having an all-female cast and making the men tertiary characters. And it wasn’t afraid to take a scathing look at Manhattan’s upper crust. The Women is filmed in black and white but it has a splendid fashion show by top Hollywood designer Adrian filmed in color for Turner Classic Movies. The dialogue, considered quite shocking at the time, is whipsmart and delightfully catty, and probably influenced a great deal of female focused movies and TV shows. Crystal’s infamous line, “There is a name for you ladies, but it isn’t used in high society…outside of a kennel” could easily be used in Absolutely Fabulous, Sex and the City or more current televised lady fare like Girls or Broad City.

The Women is a cinematic good time, and a classic not to missed. Grab your best girlfriends, put on your silk robes and marabou trimmed slippers, break open a bottle of bubbly and bond over The Women.

4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days (2007)

It is communist Romania, 1987. 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days opens in university dorm room. At first, it just seems to be an ordinary day for any group of college students. They try on make-up, buy illicit cigarettes and talk about mundane topics. But you soon realize something is going on beyond idle chit-chat and daily college activities.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days takes very realistic and gritty look a at two roommates, Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) and Otilia (Anamaria Marinca). Gabita is pregnant and is relying on Otilia to help her procure an abortion. At the time, not only was abortion illegal in Romania, so was birth control. And though the rather dim Gabita is the one in need of an abortion, it is the more pragmatic Otilia who goes through the channels to make sure she gets one.

After leaving the dorm, Otilia starts a bleak journey going from hotel to hotel trying to find a room for Gabita to have an abortion. This can’t be done at the dorms, and obviously, they can’t go to a clinic. After she finally gets a room, she meets with a back-alley abortionist ironically known as Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov). Otilia takes Mr. Bebe to the hotel room where Gabita waits. Chillingly, Mr. Bebe describes the procedure, and shames both Gabita and Otilia for being dirty sluts. While Gabita spends time in the bathroom, Mr. Bebe apparently rapes Otilia. We never see an actual rape scene, but Otilia coming into the bathroom, sans pants and scrubbing herself between her legs gives you a terrifying idea of what happened between her and Mr. Bebe.

Mr. Bebe discovers Gabita is further along in her pregnancy and demands more money, which the young girls somehow come up with. They will trade both their bodies and their money to go through this procedure. As Mr. Bebe begins the abortion, he becomes very matter of fact on what will happen. During a long shot, we see him insert a probe into Gabita and inject a liquid. There is no idea how long this will take. It could take a few hours or a few days, and Gabita could get sick and die during the procedure. Mr. Bebe does not wait to find out the outcome.

Otilia also has to leave to join her boyfriend’s family for his mother’s birthday party. Otilia doesn’t say much during the dinner, but the look on her face says volumes. As her boyfriend’s family and friends chat about everything from food to schooling, Otilia’s emotions bubble very close to the service. She has no idea what is happening to her friend, and it is driving her mad.

Otilia soon escapes the party and goes back to the hotel to find out what has happened to Gabita. These two women have gone through a very harrowing experience, but Otilia tells Gabita that they will never talk about ever again. It is as if it has never happened.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is not a pro-life or pro-choice movie. It is a look at two young women living in a world of very few options. Though young, they are world weary and defeated. The scripted dialogue doesn’t hit one false note, and neither do the performances. Ms. Marinca as Otilia is exceptionally good in her role. Without melodramatics, she conveys her character’s struggles in silence using subtle facial expressions. Written and directed by Cristian Mungiu, this movie’s aesthetic choices of no accompanying music and tight, almost claustrophobic camera shots convey the dreariness of moment in time.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is not an easy movie to watch, but never does it ring false. This movie proves not all unexpected pregnancies turn out to be puppies and rainbows. This movie is the anti-Knocked Up and will inspire a great deal of difficult conversations.

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days is not rated and is in Romanian with English subtitles.

Sing Street (2015)

It’s 1985 in Dublin, Ireland and life isn’t going well for young Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo). His parents’ marriage is falling apart. His stoner older brother, Brendan, (Jack Raynor) has moved back home after dropping out of university, and his younger siblings are a pain the ass. Conor is also attending a repressive public school (private schools are called public schools in Ireland) where he is bullied by his classmates and one of his teachers seems to revile him.

However, there is one bright spot in Conor’s life, the beautiful and mysterious Raphina (Lucy Boynton), Raphina lives in group home and has dreams of becoming a model. Conor is smitten and decides to impress Raphina by telling her he’s in a band, and he needs a model to perform in his band’s videos.

There is one glitch, though. Conor isn’t in a band, but if he wants to capture Raphina’s heart he better form one right away. And he gets onto this monumental task by recruiting several talented lads at his school to form a band, write some songs and make some videos inspired by the top pop talents of the mid-eighties. In true rock and roll fashion, Conor changes his name to more rock-friendly Cosmo and hones a more stylish look, which often entails whatever certain musicians and singers are wearing in his favorite videos (and looks most pop and rock fans who remember the 1980s all too well, sported themselves).

Top of the Pops hits, videos on MTV and winning Raphina’s heart are Conor’s main goals in life, as is escaping his dreary home and school life. It isn’t long before Conor’s parents announce their separation. And to make matters worse, Conor also has someone else vying for Raphina’s heart, an older man with a bitchin’ ride. How can Conor compete with that?

Well, with his band, of course. Conor is proving to be quite compelling behind the microphone, and is writing songs with witty lyrics and catchy hooks. His bandmates are going from strength to strength as musicians. Helping him along the way, is Conor’s older brother, Brendon, who mentors his baby brother through the power of music and his extensive vinyl LP collection.

And then there is Raphina, the lovely Raphina, who adds just the right amount of female beauty and star quality to the band’s music. And though Raphina has a boyfriend with a bitchin’ car, she can’t help but warm up to Conor. Her cool girl veneer tapers off, and soon she feels comfortable to reveal more and more about herself and her less than ideal life at the group home, her parental history, and her fears of making it as a model, especially considering it hinges on leaving Dublin to London, more of a fashion mecca back in the day.

But despite all of these challenges, Conor and his band keep on reaching for rock and roll glory, which includes a talent show at his school, which thrills some people and leaves others, most notably Conor’s least favorite teacher, less than impressed.

Sing Street is a charmer of a film, one that rarely casts a false note in the expert film making hands of John Carney who directed 2007’s Once. The acting is exceptional, and everything from the mid-80s fashions to the look of 1985 Ireland rings true. Sure, at times, I questioned Conor’s almost genius way of crafting a proper pop lyric without breaking out in a sweat or facing any writer’s block, but at the same time I couldn’t help but tap my toes and bop in my seat every time these infectiously catchy songs were performed by the band or conveyed in the videos. And I must give a shout out to Jack Reynor who is a scene stealer as Conor’s older brother Brendon.

In the end, Sing Street fills you with hope, happy rock and roll memories, and singing a happy tune. It is a movie elixir that brings you joy, which is much needed in our troubling times. I can’t recommend it enough.