Hot take time: This political cycle hasn’t been great. Many of the voices on both sides of the aisle couldn’t say more than four words to each other without cursing their grandmothers, a boisterous vocal minority seems to be behind the steering wheel of the political system and the rhetorical question being asked around every water cooler in America is pretty existential.
“How did we get here?”
I think the only nice and easy answer is fear, but that is itself a very complex thing. There’s fear of the opposition, the other and fear of complacency. But really, the root of almost all fear is change. Every day of a life is spent getting used to routine, writing the book of who you are. And after 60 years of redundancy, the fear of change can be something fierce.
Here to demonstrate for us is Ove, the man at the center of the aptly titled A Man Called Ove.
Based on the 2012 best selling novel by Frederik Backman, cantankerous old Ove has decided to hang up his cleats and call it a day on life, but he continually is interrupted in his death wish by his neighbors, specifically a recent immigrant to Sweden who has moved in with a clumsy but lovable husband, two girls and another child on the way. The introduction of children to the neighborhood, in particular, throws a pretty huge wrench into the otherwise docile elder vibe.
The family’s Iranian descent is off-putting to the Ove, used to his normal quiet, white neighbors, and their chivalrous family gatherings and foods spiced with cumin and coriander confuse and anger him. Amidst Ove’s suicidal yearning to join his late wife in death, the woman’s stubborn persistence and caring nature time and again save Ove from himself, gradually drawing him away from the edge of his life and helping him to realize that change happens and life keeps the gas pedal down whether he likes it or not. She actually doesn’t really give him a chance to not like it.
Sure, this sets the table for plenty of cheesy melodrama, but it’s sort of the emphasis behind all human choice, too. Fear of change is crippling in dire circumstances, and humanity will do most everything it can to live comfortably or, in Ove’s case, quit trying.
So having recently lost his wife, his job of 40 years, and his control on the neighborhood, Ove tries to end it all repeatedly, but he has a really hard time with it. For a film that essentially is pulling a lot of structure from The Grinch, the tone is surprisingly macabre, lending itself to some laughs in the face of deathly situations like Ove having to give up on asphyxiating in his car to give his neighbors a ride to the hospital.
A Man Named Ove isn’t the most audacious film of the year. It’s a simple story that has already connected with millions through a paperback, preaching the fact that change is not always the bad guy. Humanity’s complacency lends itself to anger and confusion and fear, but a change of pace will be the death of these feelings for better or worse. It’s the catalyst for the next chapter of everything.
By the time that this is published, the country will have voted for a new president. As of this writing, however, nothing has yet to be decided. Regardless of the result, though, this change will be the next chapter, whether we like it or not. It’s up to us as a nation to deal with it.
Ove would recommend not kicking your own bucket in light of the news.
Hot take over. (three flame emojis)
