American Beauty (1999), East of Eden (1955), Boogie Nights (1997), Lilya 4-Ever (2002), Machuca (2004), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Blow (2001), Monsieur Lazhar (2011) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Absent Mother movies.
Storyline: Carlos Galindo is a decent man, a Mexican single parent working as a gardener in California to raise Luis, his fourteen-year-old son, whom Carlos is frightened will drift into local gang culture. Carlos buys a truck for his work with money loaned by his sister but a shifty new employee steals it from him and, though Carlos and Luis track the thief down, he has sold the truck. Father and son bond as they reclaim the vehicle from the pound but Carlos attracts police attention, making his future in America uncertain when it is discovered that he is an illegal immigrant.
Plot Keywords: bare chested male, crying, lawyer, coming of age, jail, pride, american flag ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: At a French shipyard, a trade unionist named Michel deliberately arranges to have himself on the dockworkers' randomly chosen downsizing list to spare another of his fellow workers. While he has his severance package and his friends and family's generosity to ease this sacrifice, this also gets his home invaded and robbed along with his wife and friends. Through pure luck, Michel finds out the identity of one of his assailants, a young worker who was on the same downsizing list himself, and gets him arrested. However, both Michel and his wife find that their vindictive satisfaction is soured by their realization of their assailant's motives and the larger consequences of their revenge. Struggling with their conscience, the couple finds themselves independently trying to live up to their ideals for a greater sense of justice.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
Plot Keywords: 2000s, poverty, stolen money, reference to spider man, nostalgia, title appears in song, title based on song ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Disheartened attorney Mike Flaherty (Giamatti), who moonlights as a high school wrestling coach, stumbles across a star athlete through some questionable business dealings while trying to support his family. Just as it looks like he will get a double payday, the boy's mother shows up fresh from rehab and flat broke, threatening to derail everything.
Plot Keywords: girl, grandfather grandson relationship, cigarette smoking, drug addict, juvenile delinquent, tournament, bus ride ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The story of John Lennon's childhood and teenage years from 1944 to 1960, his relationship with his aunt Mimi and his mother Julia -the two dominant women in the first part of his life-, his first meeting with Paul McCartney and George Harrison, their friendship, their love for music and the birth of The Beatles.
Plot Keywords: recording, cafe, restaurant, piano, banjo, kiss, boardwalk ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In the late 1970s, in Boston, the bipolar Cameron "Cam" Stuart lives with his wife Maggie and their daughters Amelia and Faith in an isolated house in the countryside. When Cam is fired from his job, he has a mental breakdown and Maggie is forced to institutionalize him. When he is released, he moves to a small apartment while Maggie works to support the children. She decides to apply to an MBA program to improve her income and she is accepted by Columbia University in New York. She asks Cam to take care of the girls for eighteen months and he agrees despite his fears. Maggie moves to New York and Cam is responsible for Amelia and Faith's education. Will the scheme work?
Plot Keywords: mental illness, father daughter relationship, bipolar disorder, semi autobiographical, absent mother, cigarette smoking, reference to harvard university ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: SON OF RAMBOW is the name of the home movie made by two little boys with a big video camera and even bigger ambitions. Set on a long English summer in the early '80s, SON OF RAMBOW is a comedy about friendship, faith and the tough business of growing up. We see the story through the eyes of Will, the eldest son of a fatherless Plymouth Brethren family. The Brethren regard themselves as God's 'chosen ones' and their strict moral code means that Will has never been allowed to mix with the other 'worldlies,' listen to music or watch TV, until he finds himself caught up in the extraordinary world of Lee Carter, the school terror and maker of bizarre home movies. Carter exposes Will to a pirate copy of Rambo: First Blood and from that moment Will's mind is blown wide open and he's easily convinced to be the stuntman in Lee Carters' diabolical home movie. Will's imaginative little brain is not only given chance to flourish in the world of film making, but is also very handy when it comes to...
Plot Keywords: friendship between boys, male bonding, medical examination, movie premiere, rescue from drowning, private school, movie theatre ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In Philadelphia, Billy Batson is an abandoned child who is proving a nuisance to Child Services and the authorities with his stubborn search for his lost mother. However, in his latest foster home, Billy makes a new friend, Freddy, and finds himself selected by the Wizard Shazam to be his new champion. Now endowed with the ability to instantly become an adult superhero by speaking the wizard's name, Billy gleefully explores his new powers with Freddy. However, Billy soon learns that he has a deadly enemy, Dr. Thaddeus Sivana, who was previously rejected by the wizard and has accepted the power of the Seven Deadly Sins instead. Now pursued by this mad scientist for his own power as well, Billy must face up to the responsibilities of his calling while learning the power of a special magic with his true family that Sivana can never understand.—Kenneth Chisholm (kchishol@rogers.com)
Plot Keywords: superhero, eye, atm, boardroom, attempted robbery, convenience store, beer ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: The uplifting movie is based on the true story of the Doyle Family in 1950's Ireland. Desmond Doyle is abandoned by his wife who runs off to Australia and leaves him with their three small children. He tries his best to continue supporting them singing in the pub and doing painting here and there, only to have the government and child services remove his children stating there has never been a precedent of a Father raising his children without a Mother in the picture. He goes to court, and loses, and is told he cannot appeal his case. He then happily finds a retired lawyer who has taken on constitutional law successfully in the past, who willingly helps him take his case to The Supreme Court.—kateann1027
Plot Keywords: drunkenness, doll, male female relationship, grandfather granddaughter relationship, cigarette smoking, year 1953, child custody ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: What is the nature of childhood resilience? Sisters Jin and Bin, ages 6 and 3, live with their mother. Jin likes school and does well. One day, their mother leaves the girls with their father's sister, a woman they do not know. The mother seeks a reconciliation with their father. She leaves them a plastic piggy bank, promising to return when the bank is full. The girls scrub and clean for their aunt, a tippler who's often cranky and complaining. She gives them a few coins for their work. They earn more money catching, grilling, and selling grasshoppers. They miss their mother. The bank fills. They watch for her from a mound of dirt. Will she return? Will stoic faces give way to a smile?—<jhailey@hotmail.com>
Plot Keywords: sister sister relationship, single parent, dinner, chopsticks, down syndrome, child's point of view, singing ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: After Portland slacker John Callahan (Joaquin Phoenix) nearly loses his life in a car accident, the last thing he intends to do is give up drinking. But when he reluctantly enters treatment - with encouragement from his girlfriend (Rooney Mara) and a charismatic sponsor (Jonah Hill) - Callahan discovers a gift for drawing edgy, irreverent newspaper cartoons that develop a national following and grant him a new lease on life. Based on a true story, this poignant, insightful and often funny drama about the healing power of art is adapted from Callahan's autobiography and directed by two-time Oscar® nominee Gus Van Sant. Jack Black, Carrie Brownstein, Beth Ditto and Kim Gordon also star.
Plot Keywords: disability, therapy, alcoholism, wheelchair, drawing, hospital, caretaker ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: In 1935 a group of elderly British women, whom the Italians have named the Scorpioni, have chosen Italy, specifically Florence, as a place to live to blend their proper British sensibilities with their love of Italian art and culture. One of those Scorpioni, Mary Walsh (Dame Joan Plowright), works as the English secretary for Paolo Innocente (Massimo Ghini), who, in part because of his own wife's adamant refusal, largely neglects his illegitimate adolescent son, Luca (Baird Wallace), despite Paolo's want for Luca to grow up to be a proper young man, much like the English. Luca has lived in an orphanage since his dressmaker mother's death, death a concept that Luca does not yet understand. As such, he often runs away looking for his mother. On a mutual agreement between Paolo and Mary, Mary becomes Luca's guardian, she who will receive help in raising Luca by her fellow Scorpioni and financial help from Paolo as needed. Associated with the Scorpioni is a brash younger nouveau riche ...
Plot Keywords: lesbian, rape, surrogate mother, absent father, world war one, gestapo, artist ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Two teenagers, both newcomers to London, forge an unlikely friendship over the course of a hot summer. Tomo is a runaway from Nottingham; Marek lives in the district of Somers Town, between King's Cross and Euston stations, where his dad is working on a new rail link. The boys are both infatuated with the same girl, and pass their days bickering over which of them loves her the most. Finding himself homeless, Tomo surreptitiously moves into Marek's bedroom - but it's only a matter of time before Marek's dad discovers what's going on...—Neil Young, Sunderland
Plot Keywords: photograph, drink, homelessness, kiss, polish, teenage boy, coming of age ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: At the edge of adolescence, Tracy is a smart straight-A student--if not a little naive (it seems...she smokes and she cuts to alleviate the emotional pain she suffers from having a broken home and hating her mom's boyfriend, Brady.) When she befriends Evie, the most popular and beautiful girl in school, Evie leads Tracy down a path of sex, drugs and petty crime (like stealing money from purses and from stores). As Tracy transforms herself and her identity, her world becomes a boiling, emotional cauldron fueled by new tensions between her and her mother--as well as, teachers and old friends.
Plot Keywords: oral sex, female frontal nudity, female nudity, lesbian kiss, thong, dysfunctional family, single mother ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Struggling to retain custody of his daughter following his divorce, football coach Steve Williams finds himself embroiled in a recruiting scandal at the tiny Catholic college he is trying to save from closure with a winning program.—Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
Plot Keywords: catholic, college, college football, american football, bar, dancing, party ...
Movie Details Click Here!Storyline: Jennifer Corvino, the daughter of a famous actor, has had trouble with sleepwalking for some time. Her doctor said that it can develop a split personality. She discovers her alternate personality when she stays at a boarding school that was once the home a Richard Wagner. But someone has been killing the students, and it relates only indirectly to the criminal sanitorium nearby. So it's up to "the two greatest detectives the world has ever known, or should I say, unknown"
Plot Keywords: maggot, side boob, cult director, surrealism, telepathy, insect, held captive ...
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