Continental Divide

Shakespeare rightly noted: “The course of true love never did run smooth.”

This is particularly true of the love found in romance fiction where the genre convention is to introduce two potential lovers with enormous chemistry and desire then place as many obstacles between them as possible.

Obstacles to love are too numerous to name, but they’re dwindling. No longer are class, race, sex credible impediments. Part of the reason “Notting Hill” works so well is that fame as a hindrance in our celebrity-obsessed culture is so believable. And with “Going the Distance” we have another. The world is shrinking to be sure, but not enough to solve the enormous issues of a bicoastal relationship.

Drew Barrymore and Justin Long star in this romantic comedy about a long-distance romance that may be worth fighting for. Garrett (Long) is still nursing the wounds from a recent breakup when he meets Erin (Barrymore), an unflinchingly honest girl with a big talent for bar trivia. Hitting it off immediately, the pair spend a romantic summer together in New York City. It was supposed to be a summer fling, but as fall approaches and Erin returns to San Francisco, the spark is still there. Subsequently dividing his days between working and hitting the bars with best friends Box (Jason Sudeikis) and Dan (Charlie Day), Garrett drops everything whenever Erin calls. The more Garrett's phone rings, the more his pals begin to suspect that their drinking buddy is taking the relationship a little too seriously. And they're not the only ones; Erin's sister, Corrine (Christina Applegate), is keen to ensure that her smitten sibling doesn't repeat the mistakes of her past, and she makes no attempts to sugarcoat the fact that she disapproves of the coast-to-coast romance. But the heart wants what the heart wants, and as the texting becomes more intense, both Garrett and Erin start to suspect that their summer fling may just be the real thing.

“Going the Distance” is a stellar romantic comedy—genuine and genuinely funny. Its honest, real, credible look at the issues of long distance dating never feel false or forced. The film never over reaches in the way so many do, never gives us unearned emotion or over-the-top melodramatic plot twists. It’s a comedy about adults for adults with mature, often sexual, humor that rises organically out of who the characters are, their relationship, and the situation they find themselves in.

Barrymore is, as usual, adorable, and she and Long make a sweet, convincing couple in a relationship worth working out. Speaking of working . . . the chosen professions of the couple (print journalist and music promoter) not only provide authentic challenges and obstacles, but reflect the upheaval both industries are experiencing right now.

“Going the Distance” works so well, is so good, that it is easily the most fun, enjoyable experience I’ve had in a movie theater in a very long time, and I can already hear the film knocking on the door of my top ten romcom list. It’s the kind of romantic comedy you can give yourself over to and not regret the morning after.

The Quiet American

“The American” is a quiet, little film, visually arresting, slowly affecting—a well crafted work of art, but on the artisan more than artist end of the artistic spectrum.

At one point, an insightful and observant priest notes that the main character, who presents himself as a photographer, has the hands of a craftsman more than an artist. It’s hard to think of a better way to describe the film itself. Well built. Beautiful. Work of craftsmanship. Not an artistic masterpiece.

Academy Award winner George Clooney stars in the title role of this suspense thriller. As an assassin, Jack (Clooney) is constantly on the move and always alone. After a job in Sweden ends more harshly than expected for this American abroad, Jack retreats to the Italian countryside. He relishes being away from death for a spell as he holes up in a small medieval town. While there, Jack takes an assignment to construct a weapon for a mysterious contact, Mathilde (Thekla Reuten). Savoring the peaceful quietude he finds in the mountains of Abruzzo, Jack accepts the friendship of local priest Father Benedetto (Paolo Bonacelli) and pursues a relationship with a beautiful prostitute named Clara (Violante Placido). Jack and Clara’s time together seems hopeful and free of danger, but is such a thing possible for a man like Jack?

“The American” was written by Rowan Joffe, based on the novel “A Very Private Gentleman,” by Martin Booth, and directed by Anton Corbijn, a Dutch photographer who has worked extensively in the music industry. His feature film debut was “Control,” a film about the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis.

Cinematography is often referred to as painting with light or writing with light, which is exactly what Corbijin does so brilliantly. Every frame of the film is picturesque—carefully composed, exquisitely captured. In this age of digital video, in the era when film is supposedly “dead,” it’s good to imagine holding up a strip of film to the light and considering how each frame is a still photograph. Corbijin’s work is a good reminder, and it makes me think that a photographer making a movie is like a poet writing a novel—any sacrifice in narrative drive is often made up for by beauty, artistry, and craftsmanship.

Like the film itself, Clooney’s performance is stripped down. Quiet. Sparse. Spartan. There’s none of the usual Clooney charm, and the movie is the better for it. Also like the film, Violante Placido is breathtakingly beautiful, her body carefully crafted by a true artist, every shot of her a photograph worth framing and hanging. Equally as beautiful, though in a very different way is the conscience of this well crafted film—Father Benedetto, played brilliantly by Paolo Bonacelli. He provides humble, helpful insight, wisdom, and service, an ego-less spiritual caretaker worthy of confessing to.

If over-the-top, cartoonish Hollywood action-adventure movies have left you unsatisfied, try this art house thriller. The quiet ride it provides is far more effective, far more enthralling, far more resonate than big-budget bombs and one-dimensional good and bad guys could ever be.

Film School

Movies are magic.

Or can be.

The good ones, like all good art, don’t merely entertain. They enlighten. They inspire. They educate—an education of heart far more than head.

They transform us.

They challenge us.

They change us.

Of course, there are plenty of people who find film frivolous. Pragmatists, who, unlike me, fail to find meaning in fiction, in made-up stories, in myth and metaphor. It’s sad. Stories are sacred. Or can be. They speak to our souls. They have the ability to convey and communicate more truth, more wisdom, more of what matters most, than any other form of communication.

“The Film Club,” a memoir about movies and other things that really matter, by novelist, David Gilmour, demonstrates these truths quietly, but effectively, subtly, but with plenty of profundity.

Gilmour, an unemployed movie critic trying to convince his 15-year-old son Jesse to do his homework, realizes Jesse is beginning to view learning as a loathsome chore, and offers him an unconventional deal: Jesse could drop out of school, not work, not pay rent—but he must watch three movies a week of his father’s choosing.

Week by week, side by side, father and son watched everything from “True Romance” to “Rosemary’s Baby” to “Showgirls,” films by Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Brian Depalma, Billy Wilder, and others. The movies got them talking about Jesse’s life and his own romantic dramas, with mercurial girlfriends, heart-wrenching breakups, and the kind of obsessive yearning usually seen only in movies.

Through their film club, father and son discussed girls, music, work, drugs, money, love, and friendship—and their own lives changed in surprising ways.

Can watching movies with a novelist/film critic dad really be better than going to school? Is this ingenious parenting or grounds for being declared unfit? You can decide for yourself. My answer? Well, I happen to have a fifteen year-old son, who truly excels in school—far and away better than I ever did—and, I happen to be a novelist and (something like) a film critic, and I truly believe I could provide him a better education than he could receive virtually anywhere. I’ll only add two caveats: 1) Unlike Gilmour, literature would be a big part of my curriculum, and 2) I’d hire a math and science tutor.

Gilmour gambled. He risked a lot in attempt not just to educate, but to save his son. As he puts it, “The films simply served as an occasion to spend time together, hundreds of hours, as well as a door-opener for all manner of conversational topics — Rebecca [Jesse’s girlfriend], Zoloft, dental floss, Vietnam, impotence, cigarettes.”

The book is filled with insight and wisdom like:

“The second time you see something is really the first time. You need to know how it ends before you can appreciate how beautifully it’s put together from the beginning.”

“It is an example of what films can do, how they can slip past your defenses and really break your heart.”

“The beautiful girl in the Thunder Bird in “American Graffiti” who keeps disappearing is an example of Proustian contemplation that possession and desire are mutually exclusive, that for the girl to be the girl, she must always be pulling away.”

“You can’t be with a woman you can’t go to the movies with.”
All of which leads Jesse, his son, to certain insights of his own: “It’s like when you’re watching a film you really love. You don’t want somebody trying to be interesting. You want them just to love it.”

Gilmour offers much to contemplate about the movies he chooses to reach his son with, too. Within just a few introductory paragraphs he reveals interesting information about the movies as well as helping his son (and the reader) have a more meaningful experience with it.

He reveals how Stephen King hated Stanley Kubrick’s handling of “The Shining,” said Kubrick made movies to hurt people; how Brando improvised the scene in “On the Waterfront” when he takes the girl’s glove and puts it on his hand; how Steven Spielberg made his directing debut with a truck-chase thriller called “Duel,” which he still watches periodically to remind himself of “how he did it,” how Spielberg said, “You have to be young to be so unapologetically sure-footed;” how Howard Hawks said that a good film must have at least “three good scenes and no bad ones.” And so much more!

Reading “The Film Club” and reflecting on it, reminds me of the way in which I used movies to connect with and educate my daughter over the years—particularly when she was entering early adolescence. We watched all sorts of films—including the horror movies that are such a rite of passage for teenagers—but most of all I designed a cinematic curriculum in feminism, attempting to empower her by showing her just how kickass teenage girls like Buffy Summers and Veronica Mars and Rory Gilmore could be.

This past weekend, my now twenty-year old kickass daughter came home from college with the textbook from her film class, and we connected over and celebrated cinema all over again as I devoured the tome in our kitchen, in the car (as she drove), and at the table of the Chinese restaurant where we went to lunch. The experience was all the dad of an amazing, kickass co-ed could ask for, and it made me so very grateful that we, like the Gilmours, had started our very own version of the film club so many years ago and that it continues to this day (we even watched “The Killer Inside Me” while she was here.)

Gilmour picks some truly great films to share with his son, and the book includes the complete list. I recommend reading the book and watching the movies—and if you can share the experience with someone, form a “film club” of your own, all the better.
Story can be sacred.


Movies can be magic.

Sharing the meaningful ones with our children is nothing short of shamanistic.

Greatness Within Our Grasp

A few days ago, I witnessed a talented, young artist get discouraged to the point of sulking because one element of the project he was working on didn’t turn out the way he had hoped.

It was interesting to witness.

“I suck,” he said. “I’m terrible.” This, after a quick experimentation he had spent a short time on didn’t work—or didn’t work in the way he wanted it to.

He’s barely out of his teens, has only relatively recently grown serious about his art, had worked on this particular part of his project for a very short time, and was quite dispirited because it wasn’t an instant success.

The disappointment and depressing condition the young man experienced were temporary, and he’s back at work on his craft—and probably was later the same day—but it reminded me of just how much hard work, discipline, dedication, patience, practice, time, blood, sweat, tears, failure, and investment becoming truly proficient at something requires.

I can’t know for sure, but the young artist, like nearly all young artists, seemed to expect to be able to accomplish what he wanted to because he wanted to, because he has talent, but what he lacks, what prevents him from being able to achieve what he’s striving for isn’t talent. It’s something else—something that makes talent the smallest component of the equation in any endeavor.

One of the most dangerous mentalities we can have is the easy, lazy belief that “you either have it, or you don’t.”

I work with creatives all the time, mostly writers, who want to—no, check that—who expect to be good, even genius early in their development (notice I didn’t say career) and in early attempts or first drafts.

Only people who don’t know any better think they can be good at something from the jump—which describes most novices and people trying to do something new. We don’t know because we’re new, and either we think that what we do is good or we’re so overwhelmed by its failure, we abandon it. Both cause us to give up—the first, on truly becoming good, the second, for good.

Both tragic responses fail to perceive the truth—being great at something is not a birthright, but the result of busting our asses.

I’m not saying we’re not born with talents, not given certain innate gifts and natural abilities, that we don’t have specific interests and internal proclivities that point to potential, just that they are little more than a place to start.

Talent is a seed. Full of potential—not much more.

I know a lot of talented people. The world is full of them. Hell, prison is full of them. During my time as a prison chaplain, I was amazed at the staggering amount of talent languishing behind the chain link and razor wire.

Talent inside prison is like talent anywhere. It’s all the same. Just potential. Just possibility.

What we do with our gifts and talents, how we develop them, what we invest in them, that’s what determines outcome, that’s what makes the difference between success and failure.

And it’s no small investment that’s required to become truly great.

Experts agree that to truly excel at something, to be world class, requires ten years or ten thousand hours of a certain type of the right kind of practice.

Two inspiring and encouraging and wise books that make a convincing case for this are “Talent Is Overrated: What really separates world-class performers from everybody else” by Geoff Colvin and “Outliers: The story of success” by Malcolm Gladwell.”

If the frustrated young artist who says he sucks after failing in certain ways at his new craft and you and I want to become masters, we must invest a decade of our lives to deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice, according to Colvin, is “designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher’s help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it’s highly demanding mentally, and it isn’t much fun.”

Notice that last one. Amateurs have fun—both in practice and in performance. The proficient (notice I didn’t say professionals) do not. It’s all about approach. Do you want to have a good time or do you want to become good at what you’re doing?

The latter approach is about always improving—pushing ourselves just beyond what we can currently do. It avoids automaticity and actually changes our bodies and brains.

I can say unequivocally and experientially that I have found this to be the case. I became serious about writing fiction in the summer of 1994. It was then that I began to write daily, seek and receive feedback, study great writing—reading books about writing and reading lots of great novels—and though I witnessed improvement all along, it was after I crested the ten thousand hour and one million word mark that I experienced a quantum leap into a level of proficiency that was, to me and trusted others, apparent and recognizable.

Want to be great at something? Whether or not we are is far more in our control than most of us realize.

Here’s a challenge for you. Find someone who is consistently proficient, who is great at what they do, and examine what enabled them to reach their current level of performance. I guarantee, whether you find evidence of natural abilities or not, you will certainly find someone who is reaping the reward of years of investing, of working harder and longer and more intentionally and deliberately than anyone else.

There are no shortcuts.

The belief in genius, in prodigies, in “you have it, or you don’t” amounts to little more than an excuse for laziness.

You, me, and the sullen young man who inspired this piece, have an opportunity to be world-class, but are we willing to pay the price, put in the work, sacrifice a big chunk of our lives to achieve it?

Dedication to a decade of deliberate practice is the beginning. What are you waiting for? Get Colvin and Gladwell’s books and get busy.

The Sacred Journey

I went to see “Eat, Pray, Love,” not because I expected it to be a great movie, but because its subject—namely how to live optimally—has been a lifelong pursuit of mine.

I’m so very grateful for the gift of my life, and sincerely attempt to put the most into it and get the most out of it. Toward that end, I continually ask myself the following questions.

(I’m not saying Liz Gilbert, the protagonist of “Eat, Pray, Love,” asks the same questions, just that her quest may have led her to some of the same answers.)

Am I practicing love and kindness?

How do I obtain enlightenment?

What is the meaning of my life?

How do I truly savor every drop of juice from the sweet fruit of the tree of life?

Am I being mindful?

How awake am I? How aware? How alive?

Am I blindly following the culture I was born into or questioning everything in search of the truth?

Am I living justly and compassionately?

Am I making the world a better place by living unselfishly, extending myself for others, giving my gifts with joyous generosity?

I’m not saying I’ve figured out the best way to live—not even close—just that I’ve devoted myself to finding out the best way for me to live my life.

Liz Gilbert dedicated a year of her life to a similar pursuit. Here’s how the studio describes the film:

“Liz Gilbert (Julia Roberts) had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having — a husband, a house, a successful career — yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali. Based upon the bestselling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love proves that there really is more than one way to let yourself go and see the world.”

“Eat, Pray, Love” is better than I expected it to be, and, as usual, Julia Roberts is resplendent. The writing and directing are good—save for the way too much of the film is lit with a soft, ethereal quality from above and behind its actors, the overblown rim light putting a halo-like aura around Julia that I found extremely distracting. And it follows her not matter where she is—in a theater, a darkened room, even walking down an unlit street at night in Italy.

Liz’s journey toward enlightenment, toward love, began because she’s lost her appetite for food and life and wanted to go some place where she could marvel at something.

She’s in a crisis—recently divorced, floundering, trapped on a treadmill of meaningless, unintentional existence.

Like so many of us, it takes a crisis to move and motivate her. But we don’t have to wait for crises to force us toward meaningful lives any more than we have to travel the world to find some place to marvel at something.

Right now people from all over the world are traveling to Italy, India, and Bali attempting to eat, pray, and love their way to happiness and fulfillment, but the problem isn’t our zip code. It’s us.

Liz traveled around the world to find that the kingdom of God was within her all along. To walk the path, the way (of enlightenment, fulfillment, and love) doesn’t require outward travel, but inward.

There’s nothing wrong with travel, with an outward journey that symbolizes our inner one, but it’s the smallest aspect, shortest distance, least important part of the true journey.

In the same way the best thing an education can do is to teach us how to be students for life, the best and only hope Liz has of a continuous life filled with meaningful eating, praying, and loving is if her journey caused her to be able to have the same experiences when she returned. If we can’t find something to marvel at every single day, the problem isn’t with the world or where we live, but with us and how we perceive.

And we don’t have to devote ourselves to a guru to become our best selves. Or, if we do, it needn’t be for long and we don’t need to have just one. And no matter how helpful or inspiring or transformational we find certain leaders, we must inevitably shoot our gurus and sprinkle ashes on our Buddhas.

Like inspiration that becomes doctrine and eventually dogma, teachers, counselors, gurus too soon become gods and our attachment to them ultimately leads to spiritual dependency and death.

Liz found what worked for her. You and I have to find what works for us. There are no rules. There is no one path, no one way to walk The Way.

Want to know the best approach to life? Ask anyone with a terminal disease. They’ll tell you. Cast aside what really doesn’t matter. Spend your few rare, precious, priceless moments on meaningful things of lasting value.

Liz tried new ways of living in an attempt to change her life—going to extremes and traveling the world. And it seems to have worked. But true, lasting change is about integration, about how we live every single day. It lasts because we’re making lifestyle changes that lead us back to our best, most original selves. Diets don’t work because they are faddish and temporary and don’t constitute a true change in the way we live. The same is true of spiritual fads or programs or the latest greatest teaching of the most popular guru or book or Oprah guest.

Lasting change is about integrating what really matters most into our lives.

Here’s what I attempt to (and fail to) do every day and what I recommend to you:

Be. Savor every second. Breathe deeply. Empty. Open heart and mind and belt to the wonderful, terrible grace-filled catastrophe of life. Live with abandon. Love with passion and without reservation. Search for God—within and without. Be kind. Be still. Be silent. Be with supportive, nurturing friends. Be alone. Give. Give. Give. Ask. Seek. Knock. Sing. Dance. Make every meal a celebration. Make every day an adventure. Think. Create. Have lots of sex. Dream. Play. Protect the weak and vulnerable. Speak the truth. Fight for justice. Stand up for the oppressed. Be creative. To mine own individual, idiosyncratic self be true.

Only when these things become a way of life—something we live every day, not only on certainly holy days or in certain exotic places—only when eating is praying and everything is love, will we be our best, deepest, most actualized selves and live our best, richest, most meaningful lives.

Perchance to Dream

To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.


For all we know—or think we do—we know very little about dreams. Of course, the truth is, we know very little about much of anything, but some things are harder to fake than others.

Dreams can be defined as a succession of images, sounds, or emotions the mind experiences during sleep, but that doesn’t even begin it.

Dreams are mystical and spiritual, ineffable and inexplicable, which is why I take issue with Freud’s claim in “The Interpretation of Dreams,” that he can “demonstrate that there is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams, and that on the application of this technique, every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state.”

Dreams are mysteries. Any interpretation is at best only partially correct.

Dreams can be instructive and inspiring, but in the way all mysterious things (God, the universe, art, life, death) are—In subtle, lyrical, non-literal, largely metaphorical ways.

Dreams are also rich material for story. Fiction, whether on page or screen, is like a dream. My experience with writing fiction—particularly the novel—is that it is very much like entering a kind of dream state, and, I to varying degrees, remain in it until the novel is born.

In thinking about this column, it occurred to me that dreams play significant roles in three out of four of my most recent novels.

Dreams are the subject and the setting for acclaimed filmmaker, Christopher Nolan’s new movie, “Inception”—an original sci-fi actioner that travels around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb's rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved.

Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible—inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move—an enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

Though one of the most well-made and entertaining films of this disappointing summer at the cineplex, “Inception” was not as good as I wanted it to be.

Sure, it’s demonstrates a brilliant filmmaker at work. It’s as well constructed a movie as you’re likely to see. It’s interesting and exciting and intense, but it has no soul.

It’s visually stunning, intellectually engaging, but emotionally unfulfilling. A puzzle, a logicians labyrinth. Clever. Cold. Cerebral. I wanted to care for the characters—enjoy the movie on more than an intellectual level—but there was no heart, no warmth, no spirit.

And I wish “Inception” had been more dreamlike, more random and hazy and nonlinear. For all its talk about and delving into dreams, there’s very little in it that feels like anyone is actually dreaming. I felt it could really have used the hypnotic touch of a director like David Lynch. “Mulholland Drive” has far more of the dewy residue of dream state than does “Inception.”

Both times I watched “Inception,” I thought of another dream-like movie, “What Dreams May Come”—and though it’s more about the dreams that come when we’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, it makes a quite convincing case that those dreams are more like the ones we have in our beds at night or in our heads during the day than we realize.

Though I’ve seen “What Dreams May Come” several times, I decided to watch it again while writing this, and I discovered that it’s even better than I remembered. A lot better.

I had also forgotten how beautiful and extraordinary Annabella Sciorra is and what a tour de force her amazing performance is in this film. Watching her served to heighten how weak the poorly cast Ellen Page is in “Inception.”

Watch any scene in “What Dreams May Come” and you’ll find more true, convincing human emotion than in all of “Inception.”

“What Dreams May Come” is a gorgeous film, a work of art, filled with and about art. It’s magical and mystical and beautiful. In short, it’s a dream. It’s a stunning work of imagination about life and death, but most of all it’s about love and loss. It’s profound and says some interesting things about the world to come—something like “As below, so above,” we create our lives in the afterlife in the same way we do in this present life, that if something is true in our minds, it is true. As the person who wrote the phrase “what dreams may come” says, “Nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

“What Dreams May Come” is about things dreams are made of—twins, soul mates, second chances, not giving up, winning when you lose and losing when you win. It’s filled with the things that fill dreams. It’s inspiring and inspiriting—and everything that “Inception” is not.
It’s not that “Inception” is bad. It’s not. It’s quite good, and as for well-crafted, thoughtful and thought-provoking entertainment in theaters right now, it nears the top of the list of limited choices. In fact, I recommend it.

I recommend both movies, but for very different reasons. If you want to see a high-quality timepiece at work, go see the Swiss watch-like “Inception.” Its precision and brilliance are beautiful to behold. But if you want to spend time with something truly timeless watch “What Dreams May Come,” and as you do, open your mind and heart and embrace the dream of life taking place in the mind of God.

Where Do Broken Hearts Go?

What do you do when your heart hurts?

As someone who attempts to live with a certain mindfulness, I try not to bypass a broken heart, try not to short-circuit the process no matter how painful, no matter how long. There’s much to be gained from sitting with the saturnine experiences of existence.

I’m not advocating wallowing or prolonging or being miserable one moment more than we need be, just that there is benefit in the sad, in the sorrowful, in the song of the thorn birds fluttering around inside of us.

As Siddhartha so rightly stated, life is suffering. Pain is part of being a healthy human. I live, therefore I feel. And in addition to our own pain—that caused by others and the self-inflicted variety—there’s the pain of others. Only the narcissistic feel only their own pain. Love, genuinely caring for an other, inevitably leads to pain. The more love we have, the more pain we have. He who loves ten has ten woes. He who loves fifty has fifty woes. The more capable of compassion we are, the more we will suffer. Compassion comes from two words that mean to “feel with.” Feeling what others feel leads to additional pain and suffering.

Whether we choose to open ourselves to others and to their pain, or focus on ourselves and the thousand natural shocks that our flesh is heir to, pain, suffering, broken hearts are inevitable.

When my heart hurts, as it does right now, I think and feel, reflect and write, read and meditate, turning to art and religion for guidance and healing. Occasionally, I turn to trusted friends and counselors, but mostly I experience my sadness in solitude. And in my aloneness, few things comfort, console, and give care as much as the right movie.

It’s true, books are better, but there’s something so immediate about movies. Like fast-acting medicine, an old familiar film provides nearly instant relief.

I’m not recommending simple escapism, though there’s certainly a place for that, but films that feel like old friends—available to us when old friends can’t be and without all the guilt and calories that accompany comfort food.

I’m sure you have your own medicinal movies, but here are a few films that get me through you might try, too.

No filmmaker makes me happier, cheers me up faster, than Richard Curtis. “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” “Notting Hill,” and “Love Actually” are movies I watch and quote from so repeatedly it seems as if I have them on a continual loop.

When I need inspiration, to be reminded of the difference one person can make, I pull “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “Keys of the Kingdom” off my shelf—two films that, in numerous viewings, never fail to speak to something deep within me and make me cry like a little girl.

When I want to fall in love or be reminded of the possibilities of love—particularly for those whom it has seemed to pass by, I turn to “Before Sunset,” “Conversations with Other Women,” “Love Affair,” “Frankie&Johnny,” and “The Russia House.”

When I want to look at life from a different perspective, to see the world and love and relationships in a new way, Charlie Kaufman is what’s called for, in particular, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and “Synecdoche, New York”—movies that are moving, thought-provoking, awe-inspiring, devastating.

And for all the above—for love, romance, inspiration, sacrifice, making a difference, and just getting carried away—nothing the doctor orders can compare with “Casablanca.”

If my broken heart wants not to feel unbroken, but commiserate with other broken hearts, I find “Brief Encounter” and “The End of the Affair” particularly appealing.

Sometimes, when I’m laid low by life or love or something far more random, what I need is to just be swept away, to get caught up, or take off on an adventure. When I do, I return to “The Last of the Mohicans,” Blade Runner,” “Spartan,” “Man on Fire,” “Déjà vu,” “The Thomas Crown Affair,” “Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist,” “The Holiday,” and “Dan in Real Life.”

And if I just need to laugh, nothing helps me quite as much as “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “The Hangover,” and, of course, a Richard Curtis film—most of which could go in all of these categories.

There are so many other movies I could mention. This list is not meant to be comprehensive. These are just where my broken heart goes, the ones I keep in my medicine cabinet—my first aid kit for my in-case-of-emergency moments.

As you can see, among other things, I recommend movie therapy. Story gives meaning to our lives, and films provide a singular, immediate experience of story—art imitating life in narrative we can relate to and be inspired by. So the next time you’re feeling broken, remember my prescription. Take two movies and call me in the morning.