The Fundamentals of Caring

The Fundamentals of Caring

[Devin Dayley]

Year Released: 2016

Director: Rob Burnett

Stars:

Craig Roberts

Paul Rudd

Selena Gomez

General Summary:

A man, Ben (Rudd), enrolls in a class about caregiving and becomes a caregiver to a boy, Trevor (Roberts), who is suffering from muscular dystrophy. As they form a friendship, they go on a adventure and meet Dot (Gomez), a 21 year old woman hitchhiking her way to Denver, CO.

Review:

I don’t write reviews on everything I watch but I felt it was important to write a review on this film for two (2) reasons. 1) It is influential film that I feel a large majority of the population can learn from, and 2) it is not getting very much recognition, like I just stumbled onto it. So, I feel that by doing my part to get the word out about this film, I will be doing a service to mankind.

This is a film, not a movie. I classify it as a film not because it taught me something I didn’t previously know, but because it caused me to feel good and because it caused me to think about myself and how I view people who are severely disabled. Not only did I think about how I view others, I thought about how I view myself, which is, objectively, a mildly handicapped person.

First, Craig Roberts plays Trevor, the boy crippled by muscular dystrophy. In doing research about this film after watching, I read quite a bit of controversy about how he is not handicapped by any ailment in real life. Personally, I don’t have a problem with this. To me, this is a very similar situation to having a non-LGBT person playing an LGBT role. It does cause a lot of hoopla in the press and does matter to a lot of people but it just doesn’t really matter to me. What is nice, I think, is having a particular subset, or group of people, like the disabled highlighted and given attention instead of the world pretending people like that don’t exist. Anyway, his acting was good. He was believable as a disabled teen who is obsessed with one thing and one thing only...SEX! It is clear that the people who wrote this film either know firsthand about disabled people or has lived a life where they understand disabled people.

Now we’ll talk about Paul Rudd and Selena Gomez. I thought they were both good in their respective roles. The main purpose of the roles was to support Trevor (Roberts), which they did. They were so accepting of a person who was different than them, it was and is refreshing. Somewhere in the middle of the film, Rudd was talking to Roberts and explaining to him that most handicapable people do not just sit around at home everyday. They go out in the world and do stuff JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. I loved hearing this! I guess I am under this delusion that people, like me, with handicaps are just supposed to sit at home because the world is “not meant for us.” This was a moment for me that caused me to stop and reflect for a minute about what my expectations are of myself and what my expectations are of the world.

The story was good! It was about Paul Rudd’s character helping Craig Roberts’ character find some zest for life and be inspired to do what he wants to do. So that was good. The manner in which he goes about inspiring him, i.e. a cross-country road trip, I thought, was kind of lame. It was realistic, though. People, well, depending on the person, would really dream of going on a road trip. So, I felt it was lame, because I don’t feel as if road trips are fun excursions in the first place but it was realistic, probably, to what a person with muscular dystrophy would be hyped up for since people like that, I would think, would want to get out in the world, see sunshine, trees, and other people in real life.

This is kind of an indie film, which explains why it did not get the advertising and marketing that it should have gotten and needed, so it has kind of cheap feel to it. I don’t know what is different, it just feels cheaper than other films. It is also listed as a comedy on Netflix, it’s not. Well, there are a few comedic moments but not much. I don’t really know if there is another genre that this film should listed under, when I stop and think about it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. At the start of it, I expected it to be a film that was dark and depressing and caused me to feel sad and bad about the world. Just the opposite, though. I left this movie, mentally, happier than when I went into it and more inspired to be kind and helpful to others, which probably was what the filmmakers hoped for when making the film.

I would rate this film a 6.3/10.