Review: The Kids Grow Up

Doug Block's second film in his 'memoir trilogy' (preceded by 51 Birch Street, a heart-wrenching dismantling of his parents' idealized marriage beginning after his mother's death) follows Block's and his wife's struggle with the looming specter of an empty nest as their youngest child Lucy prepares to leave their cozy Brooklyn apartment for a west coast college experience. 

Block relies on a wealth of footage shot over Lucy's lifetime to gracefully draw connections and contrasts between the things Lucy says now and ideas she's had about growing up in the past. Any qualms one might have about seeing a child made the center of a film she has little control over is quashed upon seeing how confident and satisfied with her choices Lucy is. At a time when cable broadcast deals are sought after as one of the last cash crops for documentary filmmakers, Lucy emerges as a fantastic anti-pageant child of sorts.

But what is for her parents a cataclysmic upheaval, is an obvious and welcome transition period for teenage Lucy. She laughs off her dad's line of questions about what it means to be an adult, or a child, or what she wants to be when she grows up. She knows she cannot reasonable possess these answers but treats her father's obsessive documentation with good humor and ease. When asked if her prom night was a "dream come true" she rolls her eyes that such a thing even exists. When her father presses her for details on how the extended long distance will affect her relationship with her French boyfriend, she demurs from fairytale notions of 'true love conquering all' and simply states "it's difficult".

Where 51 Birch Street was a fascinating snapshot of clashing generational views on marriage, The Kids Grow Up provides, in intimate detail, the way their daughter's departure impacts Block and his wife Marjorie in hugely different ways. She remains fairly even keeled until entering a severe depressive state that lasts for months, then emerges with a renewed understanding of the differences between loving someone and being overly attached to them. Doug is constantly teased about (and indulges in) a 'Peter Pan complex' which leaves him searching for indefinable details at every point. He eventually turns to his own father, whose loss of mobility and deteriorating health provides a visual milieu Block readily identifies with. The grandfather admits to being so hamstrung by societal expectations that he avoided all opportunities to get to know his children until they were well into adulthood. And in this declaration it's made clear that Doug has no imprint to understand what parents of his more hands-on generation are to do once there aren't children to take care of (and document). 

There's such a startling contrast between Lucy's sense of the limitless possibilities of life against her grandfather's sense of obligation and regret that it at times feel like they exist in two separate universes and not a quick Amtrak jaunt down to Florida. It's little wonder her departure has put her father into a tailspin of mid-life angst. Concerned that he is too much like his father and not enough like his daughter (while somewhat oblivious to the fact he is largely responsible for the wonderful person she has become) in the third chapter of this trilogy the focus on his own, transitional generation will be a fascinating grace note.

The Kids Grow Up screened as part of the HotDocs 2010 program and will be in select cities soon.