Movies that will give you inner peace

“Little Miss Happy”

Directed by: Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris, 2006

Unprepossessing seven-year-old Olive wants more than anything to win the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. Her family is not opposed to the girl’s dream coming true, but they are so heavily burdened by their own neuroses that they are unlikely to be able to help.

Mother is a damn tired woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The father is a complete loser who teaches others to be successful and even created his own (failed) theory of success. The brother is a Nietzsche-hating follower who keeps a vow of silence. Uncle is a famous scientist who is recovering from a suicide attempt after a failed romance. Grandpa was kicked out of a nursing home because of his addiction to drugs.

All these unfortunates are connected by family ties, each of them suffers his own personal collapse, but together they do not lose faith in their neighbor and in a brighter future, so they unite to fulfill the dream of little Olive. For this, the whole family goes on a trip in an old minibus to bring the girl to the children’s beauty contest.

No matter how incompatible these different characters may be, in the end they will manage to come to a difficult family happiness, which does not require winning the competition at all.

“While we are young”

Directed by Noah Baumbach, 2014

A childless couple in their 40s is going through a family crisis, while each of them has their own personal midlife crisis in store. Formerly a promising documentarian, Josh is now teaching film theory to talented students. Previously, he himself successfully filmed, but after the first and only film, he clung with a perfectionist grip to the second creation, on which he had already spent eight fruitless years of work.

His wife Cornelia survived a couple of miscarriages and no longer wants to expose herself to suffering, so she resigned herself to a childless future. Close friends of the couple moved away, got children and are content with a new stage of life.

But suddenly, Josh and Cornelia have new acquaintances in their twenties – a free, enthusiastic, passionate young couple. New friends either breathe a fresh breath of life into the unfortunate couple, or provoke them to experiments.

Whatever it was, it is thanks to such an acquaintance that the heroes manage to moderate cynicism and reduce their obsession with a career. The family will again remember the importance of love and marriage, and also decide on emotional maturation, which will allow them to move on to a new stage in life.

“Beautiful era”

Directed by Nicolas Bedos, 2019

The aging artist Victor does not fit into the new era in any way: he feels like a dinosaur in the modern world of gadgets and hates the progress that has deprived him of his profession. In the past, a talented book cartoonist is now in a creative crisis and depression: he was fired from his job; there is nothing to do with the son; relationship with his wife, a psychoanalyst, went wrong. She prefers a snoring lover and virtual reality over the sour face of a conservative, inflexible spouse.

A company that offers a trip to the past helps Victor cope with depression. For an impressive amount, the firm takes clients to any era, in Victor’s case, it’s May 16, 1974. The day he met the love of his life.

The fate of the film character reminds us of the simple truth that peace and happiness are only in the present, but sometimes it is very useful to return to the past to make our present day even better.

“Proof”

Directed by John Madden, 2004

Katherine was a brilliant math student but sacrificed her studies, career, and personal life to care for her ailing father. On the eve of a girl’s 27th birthday, her parent dies. Robert was a brilliant mathematician who made a breakthrough discovery and made a lifelong contribution to the industry, but later went insane and only occasionally went into remission.

The line between genius and insanity is very thin, especially when it comes to mathematics. Catherine inherited her father’s talent (or madness, as her older sister thinks) and, it seems, is about to dare to make her mark in science, and perhaps even surpass her father.

But no one believes her: neither the suffocating sister, nor the mediocre envious lover, nor even herself. Unhappy, lonely and self-contained, Katherine has to overcome many fears in order to gain peace and trust in herself.

“On my way”

Directed by Sam Mendes, 2009

Bert and Verona are a cheerful, self-sufficient couple who love each other and are expecting a baby. “We don’t live like adults,” the wife remarks somehow. They are a little stuck in the student lifestyle and are in no hurry to change something. It’s not that the family can’t afford better living conditions than the poorly heated, dilapidated house with the cardboard-covered window where they now live.

An important reason why they remain in their usual place is the desire to be close to Bert’s parents (Verona buried her own). But dreams of raising a child next to grandparents collapsed; those, without waiting for the appearance of their grandson, move to Belgium for a couple of years. And this pushes the couple to change in search of a better place and way to raise their child.

A young couple embarks on an odyssey across North America to visit friends and family, see how others live, and choose something suitable for themselves. Having seen enough of other people’s happiness and misfortune, they understand that they feel at home only next to each other and they don’t need anyone else.

“Inadequate 2 People”

Directed by Roman Karimov, 2020

After ten years of marriage, husband Vitaly wants borscht with a cutlet and a child, and wife Kristina wants happiness. Morning pages and other popular psychological techniques do not help the girl cope with the mental anguish raging inside. “What are you mad about fat? Give birth to a child, make your husband happy, and everything will pass, ”a friend persuades Christina.

In the internal struggle, the desire to focus on oneself wins. Despite the gigantic fear of loneliness and the inability to imagine a world without her beloved spouse, Christina embarks on her own path, tries to recover at the institute, finds a lover.

Having escaped into a new relationship, not having dealt with the old ones, she does not find peace and decides to switch from personal problems to professional achievements. The heroine goes through a difficult transformational path, including vagrancy and work in eateries, joins the ingenuous migrants, starts everything from scratch and eventually finds her place in the world. Having lost a lot, she finds herself.