TV Show Review: "Life Unexpected"

Life Unexpected,  a profound name for such an ordinary yet emotional show about the struggle of a teenage girl in search of her true self and while doing so, unexpectedly meets her birth parents, who abandoned her after birth, and together they fight against the odds stacked against them to truly become a family.

In Portland, Oregon, Lux Cassidy struggles from one day to another s she is in search of her perfect family and relationships which would foster happiness for her, but alas; she has bounced around 7 different foster homes and spent a very long time of her life in orphanage. And so, along with her long time friend Natasha, "Tasha," Lux decides to appeal for emancipation after which she planned to live with her boyfriend Bug. This get the story rolling as she needed her biological parents' signature for the emancipation and due her attempt to fin them, she meets Baze, her carefree biological father who lives above his bar, and Cate, who is a Radio host who is afraid of commitments. So begins their journey to become a true family but they start hitting barriers at every corner as the judge gives Cate and Baze joint custody of Lux

Cast

The show has five main characters: Lux, Cate, Baze, Ryan and Math; all other characters came and went depending on the different complex situations the main characters have gotten themselves entangled with. Brit Robertson does an excellent job playing the role of 16 year old Lux and it is hard to believe that she is not actually 16! Through out the show the emotions of confusion, uncertainty, love, betrayal and other crisis which are everyday part of a teenager's life has been very well portrayed. The same is true Shiri Appleby, who played as Cate, and Kristoffer Polaha, who played as Baze. When Baze first meets Lux, his attributes of being apathy and carelessness was well performed by Kristoffer but he also does very well to bring out the fatherly love of Baze as he struggles with his role as a father and a provider. On the other hand, Cate, a troubled but a women of soft heart was very well played by Shiri and we find her emotional side from very early in show, during her meeting with Lux as she breaks into tears, out of both guilt and unintended happiness. The two other characters, Ryan, played by Kerr Smith and Math, played by Austin Bais, are quite critical to the plot development in the show but Math's character is much weaker due to his lack of involvement in the major plot of the play. Ryan , the smooth talking Radio RJ, is quite a amicable character and through out the show provides emotional support to Lux and Cate, whereas the nerdy english teacher, Math, is Baze's emotional support. Thus both Math and Ryan are emotional support for two different sides, male and female, in the show.

The Goods

Life Unexpected provides and detailed insight into a dysfunctional family if three, where the mother and father did not start out with a stable relationship and the daughter had suffered sexually, psychologically and physically due to being in the foster care system. As they try to overcome their own shortcoming and understand each other, we get a realistic and first hand understanding of the emotional connections and loops among each family member and their efforts to appreciate each other. Cate was psychologically severely affected after she got pregnant with Lux but Baze did not want to share any responsibility which is she always had relationship issues as she did not trust any one and on the other hand Baze had  always lacked the sense of responsibility expected from ordinary individuals. As Baze and Cate tried to tailor their lives to fit Lux in, they had to face these issues and are forced to solve them as they were hampering their overall relationships with all, as well as Lux. Lux has her own problems with trust, love, confidence, truth, lies and as she also struggles to live as a family, she slowly works to fix them. The most astounding part of all these is that the show portrays that one one is perfect and the perfect family with mom and dad is deceptive as we are all broken inside. The goal should not be to blame others for the inner breakage but to fix it with everyone's help! Such a positive message is quite appreciable as most teen dramas are concerned with foolish matters. The show would definitely make a person reflect their about own family relationships and help them abandon the perfect family expectations, which causes many enormous amount of pain.

The Bads

But I do have a few complains which I believe are quite valid and to a degree disturbing. Throughout the show, there are many scenes of intimate sexual activity, which I had to fast forward, and although it might bring a degree of realism, it definitely is over-sexualization of relationships as even in one of the first episodes, Cate and Baze have sex and its quite openly portrayed. I believe, if the emphasis was more on the emotional connections than physical, it would be much more youth friendly. Another aspect is the appeal to the stereotypical male and female understandings as the main characters struggle to live up to them. I mean, Baze did not always need to be the provider, but he could have been a source of emotional support too, right? But sadly, his goal was to become a man and so emotional support is not one of them even though he blames his own father that he did not provide any emotional support. Also, another troubling aspect in the show are the use of inappropiate relationships, like Lux's romantic relationship with her teacher, Eric, and Baze's relationship with Emma who had relationship with his father. These are quite extreme situations and one indecent of the two would have been acceptable but two seems to be too much as it seems the members of the family are obsessed with inappropriate relationships. Thus I believe the characters should not be created to be narrow minded due to stereotypical restrictions,. but rather if the characters were trying to be gender neutral in their efforts to being a better parents, the show would have been much more interesting.

Paring Thoughts

So, should you watch the 2 seasons long, total 26 episodes of Life unexpected? My recommendation is a YES! I rate it at 4/5 due to its realistic portrayal of the realism of family interaction. But as I mentioned before, its not perfect and due its some what questionable scenes it is suitable for mature audience. 

Movie Review: "Merantau"

The film “Merantau” is best described as Indonesia’s shot at breaking into the international action-movie scene. With a name like that, it would be hard to imagine how the Western audience would be willing to give it a fair shot, but with other martial-arts hits such as Thailand’s own  breakout films Ong Bak (2003) and Tom Yum Goong (2007) starring Tony Jaa, that’s not too hard to imagine. To put it bluntly “Merantau” is Indonesian for a sort of “vision quest” or a rite of passage, basically a boy leaving the comforts of his home for the wide world and enter the phase of manhood.  And that’s exactly the premise of the film. 

The movie starts out with scenes of prayer and family-life, and then suddenly breaks into martial-arts sparring between someone and the movie’s protagonist Yuda (Iko Uwais, who does his own stunts by the way). This is the world’s first taste of “Silat”, an ancient martial-arts style originating in Indonesia, and which also features prominently in Iko Uwais’ second film The Raid: Redemption (2009). Written and directed by the Welsh-born Gareth Evans, both films are heavily action-fuelled but also radically different, with Merantau having a mellower and occasionally soap opera-esque feeling to it. 

The story follows Yuda leaving home for the hustle and bustle of the big city, Jakarta. While on the bus, he shares a word and a seat with another man who gives him a phone number, and says he too is going to the city for work. But once there, Yuda realizes the number the man gave him doesn’t work, and decides to spend the rest of the night at a construction-site.  The next day while buying lunch he spots a kid about to make way with Yuda’s bag. The thief makes a run for it, and a chase ensues! Just when he catches up to him, the kid tries cutting a deal (50/50?.. 70/30?), but Yuda isn’t buying! This marks one of the few comedic scenes of the movie, but as the movie progresses it gets more and more serious. Now don’t get me wrong, there are other funny parts throughout the movie but they have less to do with satire than actually action-scenes so overblown or over-acted, that you cannot help but laugh (the death at the elevator scene, comes to mind).

After catching the kid, they’re quickly distracted by an argument between a girl and another guy. Turns out it’s the kid’s sister Astri (Sisca Jessica) and what seems to be her pimp Johni (Alex Abbad). Yuda quickly gets into a fight with the guy and “rescues” her, or so he thinks. Instead, he makes things worse and gets her fired. This is basically the start of an entanglement between Yuda and the girl, which will lead to bar brawls, street fights and whoop ass all over Jakarta city. Johni is just a pawn in this game, but in charge of providing girls for human-trafficking to Ratger (played by the Danish Mads Koudal) and his buddy sidekick Luc (played by the Frenchman Laurent Buson). Not surprisingly, it wouldn’t be a martial-arts film without the final fight between the hero and the evil “boss” near the end.

The gist of the movie is Yuda trying to rescue Astri from the traffickers. The action scenes are plenty but the moves are not too exaggerated or off-the-wall. While some complain about this, others defend it for sticking to Silat’s realistic style. At 135 minutes long, the movie often at times seems to drag on, with bursts of action-scenes in between. If you’re into emotional family dramas and that type of thing, this might be your cup-of-tea more than it was mine. However, I found it a little annoying how the protagonist could be so naïve as to forget whatever he is doing just to right every wrong he seems in front of him. The ending though, was a little different than what we’re usually accustomed to. I don’t want to give it away, but I rather liked it. 

Cinematically, the movie is well made albeit the humble budget. Iko Uwais’ acting is well done and not significantly different from The Raid, except the level of action. His real-life role of being pushed into the spotlight almost from nowhere goes well into fitting the role for his character. For Gareth Evans, it marks a completely different style from his later movie. While The Raid was non-stop action with ample gore in between, Merantau is far moderate, something more aptly suitable for the family and maybe the girlfriend, unless she’s into uber-violence like The Raid. Merantau is a movie sweet and silly all at the same time, that’s the way me and some of my friends feel. If you don’t know who Iko Uwais is, I recommend you watch The Raid first and then move onto Merantau, and if you have already then what are you waiting for, go watch Merantau!