Everyone at some point has seen a movie. Whether it’s just mindless entertainment or the pursuit of watching a good story unfold, everyone has had the experience of sitting in a theater or even in their living room and getting immersed into a world other than their own. Over my lifetime I’ve seen hundreds of films, and I like to believe that I enjoyed most of them. However, every once in a while I see a movie that does more than just entertain, but rather changes the way I see the world. These movies have made me a different person after watching them and the perspective they show. In this blog, I will discuss three movies that changed my life after watching them. Warning, there will be spoilers for Superbad, Dead Poets Society, and Whiplash.
Superbad:
Superbad is a 2007 comedy movie starring Michael Cera and Jonah Hill. The core plot of the movie surrounds the three main characters, who were high school seniors, trying to lose their virginity before graduation. On the surface, it seems like an odd movie to start off with as one of the three movies that have changed the way I live my life, but it’s the character dynamics in the movie that really made an impact on me. I watched the movie for the first time in my sophomore year of high school with my friends. I had never laughed so hard from a movie and every joke hit. Instantly, it became one of my favorite movies of all time and to this day is still my favorite comedy movie.
Since then, I have seen the movie multiple times, and as I got older, the movie grew to have a different meaning for me. The main themes of the movie are about friendship and coming of age. The two main characters, Seth and Evan, come to terms with the fact that they were months away from their entire lives changing. Evan reveals to Seth that he committed to a different college than him, and that they’d be living apart from each other. The movie’s ending really hammers home the message as Seth and Evan accidentally run into their love interests at the mall, and end up going their separate ways with them. The last shot of the movie is them looking back at each other and reassuring each other that it would be okay to grow apart.
I find it poetic that I watched this movie for the first time with my high school friends, as two years after we first watched it, we were living through the exact same things as the characters. We had all committed to different colleges and for the first time since we’d met, we’d be living states apart from one another. Superbad helped me find solace in that fact, and made it easier to embrace change and embrace the future. To this day, I am still friends with the people I first watched Superbad with, but we go months without seeing or sometimes even talking to each other, but whenever we see each other it’s like we had never left. Superbad made it easier to make that adjustment in life and helped me accept that change is inevitable, and that it isn’t always a bad thing.
Dead Poets Society:
Dead Poets Society is a 1989 drama film starring Robin Williams and follows the story of an English teacher at a New England preparatory school. I watched the movie in the summer after my senior year of high school and it was the perfect movie to watch at such a big turning point in my life.
The movie follows a new English teacher named Mr. Keating at the prestigious Welton Academy. Right off the bat, he becomes notable from teaching in unorthodox manners, especially compared to the other teachers at the school. Mr. Keating does this by instantly telling students to throw out their textbooks and to seize the day. A group of students form a group called the Dead Poets Society where they feel that they can be free to express themselves and feel open enough to seize the day after being raised in such a confining environment.
The main theme is apparent when Mr. Keating tells his class early in the film, “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And because the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” This line really stuck out to me because it highlights what’s important in life. As someone going to college to get a degree in business, it’s important to remember that my career should not be the center of my life, but rather my relationships and my personal passions are what truly makes life worth living.
The emphasis in the movie on “seizing the day” became one of my main philosophies in life after seeing the film. I first watched it going into a new chapter of my life, and one with the most independence. Because of that, I’ve always made an opportunity to seize every opportunity I get. Whether it’s going out of my way to try and meet new people, or going for a job that I wouldn’t think I would do, or applying to study abroad without knowing anyone else doing it and ending up having the time of my life, I always try to remind myself to seize the day.
Whiplash:
Whiplash is a 2014 drama directed by Damien Chazelle starring Miles Teller and JK Simmons. The movie follows a college freshman drummer at the most prestigious music school in the country. The main character, Andrew, joins the most elite jazz band at the school run by Mr. Fletcher. Mr. Fletcher very quickly reveals himself to be a verbally, mentally, and sometimes physically abusive instructor in pursuit of pushing his students to excel in their craft. In the movie, Andrew becomes so lost in trying to be the best drummer in Mr. Fletcher’s band that he breaks up with his girlfriend because she would get “in the way” of his success as a musician and even walks away after getting in a car accident just for an opportunity to perform and stay in the band.
The film highlights the cost of being the best, and whether the sacrifices are really worth it. Even though I’ve never been in a band and can’t play any instrument, I can still relate to the struggle for perfection. As a college student, there’s so much pressure to be the best. My parents and advisors have always told me that if I want to get a good job or get into a good graduate program, I have to have a certain GPA and have a certain amount of involvement in the school and have to get certain work experiences and have to develop these certain skills. At a certain point it becomes overwhelming to chase perfection. Whiplash shows the true cost of chasing perfection, and to me, the idea of losing people in my life to have a successful career isn’t worth it. The film has a great story but it’s a tale that warns against the dangers of chasing perfection, and reminds me that no matter how much pressure I feel to succeed, it isn’t worth sacrificing the values that I learned from Dead Poets Society.
Daniel Rubin
Hey Daniel! I think it’s pretty crazy that movies can change how we look at life. I grew up with movies that taught me lessons like the Hunger Games, which taught me how the media glamorizes really hard situations. There are always valuable lessons to take away from any form of entertainment that we can use in our lives. Movies of all genres can really reflect different emotions we all have within us and I think the entertainment value can make the lessons really memorable.
-Clara Kelly
Hey Daniel! I can tell you have a deep appreciation for movies, just based on the way you give concise yet meaningful synopses for each of these three films. Besides that, though, I really like how you give us the context for why these movies changed your life — it was nice reading about what stage of life you were in at each time. (I have a confession though … I’ve never seen any of these movies. Only clips. Oops!)
-Gaby
I love how you find connections to those movies in real life and explain the significance they hold for you. I, too, have several movies in mind that have completely shaped my life and hold significance. I absolutely love this line “We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And because the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.” Like you mentioned in your blog, my parents have always said do what you love. I have lived by this to try…
It was interesting to read about your experiences with various movies. I like the way you structured this post, and you adhered well to the reflective tone here. I am a fellow movie lover and wrote my own post about movies as well. Your post focuses largely on movies you have seen in recent years. Do you think that movies impacted they way you lived at a younger age as well?
Olivia Wayson
Out of the movies you talked about, I've only seen Super Bad and I agree that it's hilarious but with good messages thrown in there. I watched this for the first time maybe when I was 15 but the message of consensual sex didn't strongly resonate with me because it was hidden behind the humor. As I grew and learned more about the world, I think the ending of this movie is so important because it shows consent in both male and females. Seth's whole theory was that getting girls drunk would be the only way to get his crush to sleep with him. And in the end it was him getting shut down for being too drunk, while his…