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Is it just me, or does the general tenor of film making lately seem very much to be deteriorating? I find this to be sad. Personally, i have to go back a good few years to find films with any degree of relational or developmental substance.

Here is my own short list: Dead Poets Society (1989), Mr. Holland's Opus (1995), Good Will Hunting (1997), Finding Forrester (2000), The Shipping News (2001), Real Women Have Curves (2002), The Station Agent (2003), Lost in Translation (2003), The Terminal (2004), As it is in heaven (2004), Once (2007), The Visitor (2007), The Magic of Belle Isle (2012), Trouble with the Curve (2012), The Dark Horse (2014), Pride (2014), Spare Parts (2015), Paterson (2016), The Queen of Katwe (2016), Green Book (2018).

Rebuilding 2025

A more recent gem i came across the other day, is a movie called Rebuilding (2025). While sober, if not bordering on sombre for much of it, it is a tale of finding redemption in community. The below could spoil some of the plot for you, so if that is a deal breaker, then you might like to go watch it first.

The film is about a guy who has lost his home and farm to a devastating wildfire. He finds himself being housed in a FEMA trailer camp among a ragtag bunch of other survivors. As he tries to make sense of how he can even begin to rebuild his life, he reluctantly but gradually begins to find solace in the community of his neighbors at the camp, and with his estranged 7 year old daughter, who lives with his mother.

The film seems to me like a quiet meditation on resilience, showing how it is people and relationships that matter most when everything material is stripped away. And how loss can sometimes provide a space for repairing what was broken, not of property, but of social bonds.

I was particularly struck by his stubborn reluctance to grieve. He kept trying to fix his material circumstances, and being blocked at every turn. The bank refused to loan him money to rebuild. His one option of a place to turn to, involved moving a thousand miles to help out on his sisters farm, but this meant abandoning his daughter. The film portrays him as someone who loves working with horses, livestock and the land. As someone whose identity is tied up with his work and calling. But its clear that relationally he is letting is (now ex) wife down, his daughter down, and he initially rejects the camaraderie of the others in the trailer camp, saying they are not like me.

Grieving seems to come hard to the average western male. And yet, as Francis Weller tells us in The Wild Edge of Sorrow , grieving is key to moving on from past adversity, either recent or old.

He is also someone, the wildfire notwithstanding, who lives from a place of dorsal shutdown. It was this aspect of the film that made it hardest for me to watch. Because that's a place i know well, and it still hurts to be reminded of it.

There are lots of juicy layers to the film, and as i said, its a standout in recent movie making.

As It Is in Heaven 2004

Of my short list above, there is one other particularly notable film from a relational and developmental frame. It is the Swedish film, As It Is in Heaven (2004). It's about a famous conductor who retires and returns to the remote childhood village where he grew up. He reluctantly agrees to lead the church choir, and through music begins to unlock the emotional and personal struggles of the villagers while confronting his own demons and traumas. The film explores how art and community can heal, transform relationships, and help people find their voices, both literally and metaphorically.

What struck me about this film was how the group dealt with strong emotion. People would yell and shout, and slam doors, and then they would come back together and sing. It reminds me of the way children can be. One minute, I hate you, five minutes later, I love you. In the attachment world this is called Rupture and Repair. Thats' a topic that belongs in the difficult conversations realm.

The idea of messy noisy emotions is not that familiar to me, as dorsals don't do emotion. They prefer to say nothing, and just simmer and stew. But i confess watching the film taught me a good deal about the energy of emotion, about the movement of it. Indeed Deb Dana told us that movement for dorsals is the key to moving up the ladder. In order to escape shutdown, we have to first go through sympathetic to be able to reach or access ventral connection and safety.

Both films avoid celebrating the cynical mindlessness and self-medication that dominates modern media. Both films avoid shying away from loss, loneliness, brokenness, and despair. All the films in my list believe in the possibility of human connection as redemptive. They're willing to sit in the somber parts without rushing past them, which is what makes the redemption feel earned rather than cheap. Indeed Rebuilding, only finds a shift in the final 5 minutes of the film. It is very much about the journey.

The films all trust that small acts of kindness, creativity, mentorship, or simply being seen by another person make a huge and defining difference. The redemption comes through relationship, not through fixing stuff, but through the act connection itself.

As we sit with the pain of our unspoken, barely conscious legacy of adversity, somehow managing to a hold space for trust in human goodness and the innate capacity to heal and grow feels inspiring and hopeful.