Time

Movie: Time
Nominated for: Documentary Feature
How I watched: Prime
When I fell asleep: Nope
When it had me: Fox Rich is charismatic and compelling
When it lost me: Sometimes I had questions
What I have to say: 

I got up at 7am on the weekend to watch this one. My family sleeps in but I haven't been doing that lately so maybe this is my new prime time viewing slot! Then, I intended to watch The United States Vs. Billie Holiday but I didn't have the sign in for Hulu (does this happen to anyone else? There's too many things to know all the passwords!) So I pivoted to Prime to watch Time.

This is a documentary about a family growing up while their husband/father is incarcerated. A young mother and father commit a serious crime and separate their family for over 20 years. It is one specific look at our broken justice system, yes, but maybe even more than that it highlights our broken philosophy about the world.

What stood out to me were a few quotes of Fox's. She said she believed in the American Dream, that she could do anything. She said her biggest fear was failure. She said when their business was failing they became desperate and desperate people do desperate things. And she said after their crime, she had to apologize to all of the people her decision affected because she had thought that she was an island.

They drill this into us here in America; the rugged individualism, the personal responsibility is the only factor, the belief that if you have success, you got there alone and if you failed it's because you weren't worthy. Every person is an island. That kind of thinking is creating so much pain. It leads to desperate people getting incarcerated because they didn't feel like there was a community to fall back on. It leads to mass shooters who are also an island, because once you have personally had enough, there's nothing left to do but go out in a blaze of glory.

What if we felt as if we were an inherent part of a truly interconnected community? Would we feel less isolation? Desperation? Could we fail more graciously with love and support? Could we succeed more graciously as part of a network of humanity? Would we weigh our decisions more critically if we understood that our actions affect other human beings whose lives also have weight and substance? 

This movie is inspiring me to some radical re-imagining of how the future could look different without this damned rugged individualism hanging over our heads every day in this country. I'll call that a win for Garret Bradley, the director of Time.