Loss and Love: Adoption in Movies

In life, in families, and in movies, some of the greatest stories begin with loss. Superman’s parents, in a last ditch effort to save him, launch him in the spacecraft that takes him to the Kent family farm. Peter Parker, the future Spiderman, lives with his wise aunt and uncle because his parents are dead. Even Harry Potter must wrestle with the longing to know his deceased parents as he steps into the destiny they left for him.

Adoption, for all its glory, is messy. Every adoptive story begins with loss. A child, in one way or another, has lost the parents who gave him his genetic code and very breath. As if growing up wasn’t hard enough even in the best of circumstances, an adoptive child has the added complication of having to come to terms with the existence and absence of biological family. Like Will Ferrell in “Elf,” he may feel he doesn’t fit in, like a giant, clumsy human in a miniature Christmasy world. Buddy the Elf’s journey takes him through the Candy Cane Forest, past the Sea of Twirly, Swirly Gumdrops, and through the Lincoln Tunnel to New York. Real journeys are just as epic, although perhaps not as sticky.

“Meet the Robinsons” is all about a boy’s struggle to come to terms with his mother’s abandonment. If only he could see and understand the moment she gave him up, maybe he could change it. He uses a time machine to go to the moment of loss. Adoptive children don’t have the use of time machines – yet – but often have the same drive to understand their origins before they can accept them. As their parents know, such searches for biological parents are fraught with danger. The answer the child seeks is almost never as good as they hope. One famous intergalactic adoptee found this out the hard way. Who can forget the chilling revelation: “Luke, I am your father?”

Biological parents may not turn out to be Darth Vader, but they might just be Richard and Mary Schlichting, Ben Stiller’s character’s biological parents in “Flirting with Disaster.” After chasing his biological parents all over the United States, he finds them with the help of his new buddies, including ATF agents. Only problem? His birth parents allowed him to be adopted because they chose a career path that includes making and selling LSD. Suddenly the adoptive parents don’t look so bad. The wacky story ends when the adoptive parents are mistakenly arrested in place of the biological parents. Oops.

The adoptee isn’t the only one who has challenges. Often, but not always, the adoptive parent has struggled with the loss of the dream of bearing a child. In Pixar’s “Up,” this grief colors a short, but significant, part of a silent montage of Carl and Ellie’s long, loving life together, one of the most beautiful moments of the film. In movies, happily more often in real life, this longing for children can take a wacky turn. It leads Holly Hunter and Nic Cage in a madcap dash to kidnap and then rekidnap “Nathan Jr,” one out of five quintuplets in “Raising Arizona.” Surely with five babies, just one won’t be missed.

Of course, making a child available for adoption is a loss for the birth mother too. “Juno,” an Academy Award winner starring Ellen Page, follows Juno through her pregnancy as she deals with parents, peers, and her boyfriend in her courageous quest to bring the baby to life. Juno, a teen in high school, faces a moment when she realizes the family she has picked out for her baby isn’t everything she had dreamed. She becomes an adult in the moment she accepts this reality and chooses to give her baby to the woman who desperately wants and loves him, without the promise of a happy ending for him.

The beautiful thing about movies, and about life, is that people so often transcend their grief. Movies like “Anne of Green Gables” show families built out of the broken dreams of the past and into the beauty of the present. Anne, a vibrant and passionate child, becomes the heart of Matilda and Matthew’s farm, much to Matilda’s surprise. An update on this theme is the amazing true story of NFL player Michael Oher, told in last year’s “The Blind Side.” After Leigh Anne Touhy (Sandra Bullock) gives a bed to a cold young man, he becomes part of the family. One of her friends commends her, telling her “you’re changing that boy’s life.” Leigh Anne knows there’s more to it than that. “No,” she counters, “he’s changing mine.”

This story happens again and again. The love of three orphan girls turns a dastardly villain into a happy family man in “Despicable Me.” Daddy Warbucks learns that something was missing before he found his Annie.  Sunnybrook Farm finds it needs its creative and charming Rebecca.

So it turns out that the stories born of sorrow and grief end in joy and meaning. Superman and Spiderman go on to save their worlds, with a firm foundation of selflessness, justice, and love taught by their adoptive families. Michael Oher goes on to college and the NFL. Anne marries her Gilbert. Buddy the Elf finds his place in the human world and visits Papa Elf at the North Pole every Christmas. In short, the children live their lives, with its troubles and celebrations, with the wounds of the loss of their first families healed, or at least mostly healed, by the love of their second. The parents, like all parents biological or not, are just grateful to have had their beloved children in their lives.

The loss was just the prologue. The love is the story.