October Baby

October Baby is a sweet and at the same time unbelievably powerful movie about a young woman who always feel there is something missing, or different about her, until she discovers a shocking truth.  There's a lot about family, about growing up, about forgiveness.  Heavy topics, and yet the movie itself is quite funny.

I got the opportunity to attend a screening several weeks back of October Baby.  Normally, my husband and I try to make these screenings a "date night" (and we usually run into other couples we know).  That particular night, my husband had a speaking engagement, so I invited a fellow blogging friend along and we had a nice evening out.

Sister Helena Burns (not the blogging friend I attended with, incidentally) wrote a comprehensive review on her blog earlier this week.  Please head on over there to get a feel for the plot of the movie.

There's nothing for me to add to her excellent review--she's much more detailed about "movie-ish" things.  I didn't really notice the background music issue she raises; in fact, I thought the cinematography was especially good.  Here are some of my favorites from the movie:

*the father-daughter relationship felt really real, especially a dad being a little overprotective, then learning how to let go.

*the loving, beautiful and kind portrayal of those in the abortion industry.  This loving and kind portrayal is even more so for women who choose abortion.  There's no condemnation, just love.  Wonderful--may we all be this way, all the time.

*Truman, the "funny" friend of the two main characters, and really all the friends.  He's hilarious, and wild horses couldn't drag me back to being a college student, but I would do so just to get to go on a road trip with the cast of characters that do in October Baby.

*a non-Catholic character experiences an epiphany, and a kind of healing, in a Catholic church.  Much has been made (and I have found absolutely true, and wonderful) that ecumenism is a great quality of the pro-life movement.  This movie shows how exists naturally and is not forced or awkward, but heartfelt.

*Like Sister Helena, I cried at the end.  How could you not?

October Baby is about an abortion survivor--and by that I don't mean a woman who "survives" abortion.  Sometimes, rarely, a baby survives an abortion (so the bumper sticker "abortion: one dead, one wounded" becomes "two wounded.")   And those babies grow up into remarkable adults.

Many years ago, I spent several days with Gianna Jessen, one of the abortion survivors on which the movie is based, the first time she testified before Congress.  It must have been in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and she was a young teenager--14 or 15.  I had the great good fortune to drive Gianna and her (adoptive) mom around throughout the several days she was in DC.  Driving people around seems to be a theme in my life, but it is a great way to get to know people!

I hope if our weekend schedule permits that I will take my 14-year-old daughter, and perhaps a friend or two, to see the movie this weekend.  I've been talking to her about it, and she is very eager to see it.  I think the PG-13 rating is appropriate, but probably a lot of younger kids could see it, considering all the intense media many kids consume.

I love that October Baby filmmakers will set aside 10 percent of the profits from the film for women in crisis pregnancies: