Nowhere Special is not an easy film to watch. It’s about a dying father in his early thirties who must, somehow, decide what family to select to adopt his sweet, bright-eyed, dinosaur-loving 4-year old son.
The mere thought of having to face such a situation is heart-wrenching.
What is it like to have to guess what interests and personality your child might develop so that you can best select the “ideal” foster parents? What is it like to envisage your child’s future—birthday parties, graduations, first dates and career choices—knowing all the while that you won’t get to be a part of it? What is it like to know that in a matter of weeks or months you will hold your child’s hand for the final time?
As heavy and sad as the film is, it’s hard not to recommend watching it. Life can be profoundly unfair—it always will be. Yet as difficult as tragic situations are, they offer us (in ways that almost no other circumstances are truly able to do) resounding reminders of what is actually important in life, and what is not. Never are things put more clearly into perspective than when death is involved.
James Norton plays John, a modest window cleaner and father to little 4-year-old Michael, who can’t wait for his dad to get home from work. The boy’s mother is absent, having taken off not long after the birth. John hasn’t heard from her since; there is zero contact between them.
It’s John and Michael, then, father and son, going through life, side by side. They enjoy ice cream, outings at the park, and reading books. The simple things in life, in other words; yet the kinds of things that, when shared with someone you love and cherish and would sacrifice your life for, become imbued with indescribable joy.
The movie is directed, written, and produced by Uberto Pasolini. There are many things to admire about Nowhere Special, not least the dynamic performances of its small cast. What stands out more than anything, though, is Pasolini’s ability to craft such an emotionally powerful drama without it ever feeling overwrought or contrived. Every scene feels entirely natural yet manages to convey so much. Nowhere Special is a taut, well-structured drama that packs so emotional and psychological depth into its ninety minutes.
While the most endearing scenes are those between father and son, Pasolini explores grief and the loss of loved ones more broadly. An elderly woman whom Michael is friends with tells him about the loss of her husband, a union of five decades. She only recently managed to dispose of his toothbrush, she tells him.
On top of the explorations of grief, the film is illuminative in the way it shows various couples and their rationale for wanting to adopt. In the half dozen or so meetings that John has with prospective families, one couple talks about having room in their hearts when they clearly have room only for themselves. Before Michael and John leave, they make the latter give back a toy they had offered him. The price tag is still on it; they are not asking it back for sentimental reasons.
Visually, director Pasolini does some interesting things with colors (particularly blue and red), along with bridges and ladders, crosswalks and cross signs, clean windows and dirty windows, reflections and rearview mirrors. Time, direction, perspective. Whatever position we’re in in life, whatever our age, it takes only a single unfortunate accident, a diagnosis of terminal cancer, for life to turn quickly into death. Being here on Earth one day gives little guarantee that you’ll be here the next.
Thankfully, though, life encompasses far more than the inevitableness of death and bereavement.
As John, Michael, and a social worker sit inside the apartment of a woman who is looking to adopt, she speaks about a painful experience of her past. A profound loss. But she’s looking to the future now, looking to find—and provide—warmth. “I mean, for me… it’s like the light at the end of the tunnel is a child coming into this house.”
For all the “blue” scenes in life, for all the loss and disappointment, the pain and separation, the unexpected tragedies that come out of nowhere, hopefully it’s the warm and irreplaceable feelings of love that one experiences most strongly in life: both given and received.
Spectatio 