war

“Robin Williams wasn’t Gen X, but he mattered more than anyone who was. Dead Poets Society was contraband—“carpe diem” smuggled into classrooms. Good Will Hunting went deeper: Damon’s Will hiding behind arrogance until Robin cracked him open—“It’s not your fault”—again and again until it broke. Even Good Morning, Vietnam, our parents’ war, not ours, showed comedy surviving chaos without erasing pain. Robin was teacher, therapist, DJ. When he died, we didn’t just lose an actor—we lost the only adult we trusted.” (Mark McInerney, The Movies That Defined Gen X)

Read this today and thought I’d revisit a Williams film I’d not seen in 20 years or more. It has far less to say about the war than I remember, save for one specific scene, which stands out because of it.

What started as a rollicking bildungsroman gradually incorporated big- and small-c conservative themes: reinforcement of traditional family roles and the role of the church, overbearing governments, and pride in signing up to fight for your country in a pointless war. I wasn’t terribly surprised to find out that the author was a speechwriter for Jim Mattis. A qualified recommendation.