I mean, I guess, we saw a lot of ourselves in those two characters. And we loved the music, the filming (every frame suffused with art and intelligence). Funny too. Really funny. I recommended the film to two different sets of friends, and in both cases I was later told: "We just didn't get it."
Puzzling. But, you know, thinking about it now, this morning, of course, they didn't get it. My partner and I, we live in a very affluent neighborhood, we don't really belong here, we are just barely hanging on the margins, keeping afloat with smoke and mirrors, and pluck and pure HUSTLE! And we both come from families who always had to hustle and scrape to make ends meet. We live and work with folks who grew up in totally different circumstances. It is easy to forget there is an Upstairs, and a Downstairs, (see previous post about status games), and although we can rise up from Downstairs to rub shoulders with the folks Upstairs, we really are interlopers. We are tolerated, treated kindly, but really, we are fish out of water.
My friends, my "acquaintances" exist in a completely different social class. These folks are quite wealthy. And they come from a long family tree of wealth, prosperity, and success. If anyone "belongs," these folks do. They always have done so.
Safe to say these folks never had to hustle a day in their lives. I mean, they are intelligent, accomplished folks, friendly, admirable. Society's winners. Inherited wealth beyond the imagination. You know, on the surface, human beings just like everyone else, folks just like us, but then again, it is true, the Rich truly are different. Their experience in the world is totally different than folks like us. These folks BELONG. They have always belonged.
A movie about quirky hustlers always on the make? They just didn't get it.
