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Worst Movie Parents


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Tea Leoni's character in Spanglish who went out of her way to make her daughter feel like she wasn't enough. Intentionally buying her clothes that were too small to try to shame her into losing weight was just awful.

The Ballad of Jack and Rose, with Camilla Belle and Daniel Day-Lewis. Yikes. He raised his daughter in virtual isolation, homeschooling her and making her live on some former hippie commune, with practically no friends whatsoever. He hid his relationship from her and then invited that completely unknown woman, and her two sons, to come live with him and his daughter because they "needed a woman around." It was pretty obvious Rose had mental problems due to her bizarre upbringing but Jack refused to admit it and things escalated to the point that Rose had sex with one of her soon-to-be stepbrothers, 'accidentally' shot a gun into her father's room, and then ran away. He finally acknowledged Rose had problems when she kissed him. Father of the Year, that one.

American Beauty, Kevin Spacey's character. The classic middle aged pervert trying to seduce his teenaged daughter's best friend. Also the dad in Ginger and Rosa; Ginger's father begins an affair with her friend Rosa and even gets the kid pregnant. 

But I think the worst movie dad has to be Noah Cross from Chinatown: he raped his own daughter, got her pregnant, and killed her husband.

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Bone's (second) stepfather and mother from Bastard out of Carolina is the most disgusting example of movie parents I have ever seen.  The stepfather was a pedophile and a monster, but the mother was even more repulsive.  Even after she finds out he's been molesting her -- even WALKS IN on him RAPING HER -- she just can't bear to leave him, and instead drops Bone off to live with relatives.

I cannot begin to fathom what kind of woman would willingly stay with a man that would hurt ANY CHILD, let alone her own.  And what made her think that he wouldn't turn his attention to the younger daughter?

Poor Bone.  The only halfway decent parent she ever had was her first stepfather, a prince of a man who loved and treated Bone like his own daughter, yet was tragically killed in a car accident at the beginning of the movie.

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Can Jerry from Fargo count as a terrible parent too? I mean, considering the fact he hired two guys to kidnap his wife and mother of his son without giving a damn about how it will affect said child....and later he just ditches the kid to go on the run and save his own skin. Piece of shit.

The scene where poor Scotty is crying in his room, afraid of what's happending to his mother, while Jerry just stands there, acting only SLIGHTLY guilty, but cheerfully telling him to just act like his mother is out of town...I wanted to kick him in the nuts.

Couldnt those overrated Coen brothers given us some satisfaction with an extra scene with Scotty confronting his father after he was arrested and charged? Or at least a sequence of him getting the crap beaten out of him by his fellow inmates. Whichever.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2: 

Ego has to be the worst dad ever. Procreating around the universe to make children just to use them for their energy and kill them when they turned out not be powerful enough. And he gave Peter's mom cancer 

on purpose. That's just cold.
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The parents in Heathers. Jason D.'s father is creepy as hell. And so are Veronica's. Well, maybe not the worst parent, but up there in terms of creepy, the three of them.   

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Pauline from Everything, Everything  was just a real piece of work 

Spoiler

We find out that the immune disease that Maddy was told she had that meant she was never allowed outside for entire life was basically her mother being over protective because her husband and son just died in a car crash. She took her daughter having an illness after that extra hard. Pauline ignored the doctor's allergy diagnosis and insisted her daughter had to have the more severe immune deficiency.   Her actions actually put her daughter at risk from common illnesses because Maddy wasn't exposed to common viruses and bacteria like most children are which would have strengthened her immune system as she developed leading her to reach adulthood with a weaker immune system like an infant.  She can go out in the world and never had to remain indoors and away from people 24/7 but she will get sick more easily and with more risk because her mother isolated her her whole life.  What a lonely prison the mother made for her child just to keep her close out of fear after losing her son.   I appreciated the part at the end where Maddy tried to see the situation from her mother's pov but Maddy just couldn't forgive her.  

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Examples of truly monstrous parents: Monique in Precious. The dad in Room. Angela Lansbury in the Manchurian Candidate. 

Examples of funny bad parents: Amy Poehler in Mean Girls. Christina Applegate in Bad Moms. Sissy Spacek in THE Help.

Examples of irritating parents: Casey Affleck in Manchester by the Sea. Kevin Spacey in American Beauty. Meryl Streep in August: Osange County. 

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Just watched Gifted and Evelyn deserves a mention for:

Forcing Diane to only focus on Math and nothing else her entire life, and then abandoning her when she is pregnant.

Not having any worry or care about Frank (her son) or Mary (her grand daughter) until she finds out that Mary is also a math prodigy

Custody battle for Mary - when Frank has been taking care of her the whole time.  Only focusing on the Math with Mary.

Willing to drop Mary like a hot cake when she finds out Diane did solve the Milennium problem, and she can help defend it.

 

 

Just overall a very unlikeable woman who did a major number on Diane (who killed herself) and Frank (who did an amazing job in raising his sister's kid, but who obviously was pretty messed up by his mom as well)

 

 

And completely agree with the Ego mention above.  No wonder Star Lord is crazy (he says it himself - That man is his dad!)

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I feel like I have to add Kumail's parents from The Big Sick. I immediately dislike any parents that are willing to disown their children just because they fall in love with someone that their parents don't approve of, but for them to lecture him about supposedly being selfish just because he doesn't want to have an arranged marriage....just wow. Project much?

And yeah in the end/real life they all worked it out, but still.

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Christian Wolffe's father in The Accountant.  The only thing that seemed to truly work out in the long run thanks to his father's parenting was the fact that he could defend himself really well.  The convict that he met in prison was the one who was a true father to him, teaching him the things that he'd need to know to get along in society.  My heart broke for him when he was a little boy and his father refused to let him stay at the special school for the summer free of charge and when the father had him being beaten regularly in an effort to learn how to defend himself.  I can fault the mother for bailing on them and never looking back, yes, but with an autistic child, having to move twice a year because of her husband's military service and having no support from anyone, I can understand how she reached a breaking point. 

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On 6/6/2017 at 0:01 AM, memememe76 said:

 

Examples of funny bad parents...  Sissy Spacek in THE Help.

 

I hate to say it, but if my mom laughed at me for literally eating shit, I'd toss her in a home without a second thought, too.

Yeah, Hilly is horrible, but still...

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10 hours ago, anna0852 said:

In all fairness, Hilly had already put her mother in the home when that incident occurred. If my kid tossed me in a home like that, I would probably laugh at them under those circumstances too.

Oops, I hate The Help so much, I forgot about that part. Never mind.

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On 9/23/2017 at 5:01 PM, DisneyBoy said:

The King and Queen in Frozen who knowingly mind-wiped one daughter and let the other grow up hating herself in total isolation from the rest of the family. I can't.

 

On 9/24/2017 at 3:48 AM, Spartan Girl said:

I HATE Elsa and Anna's parents. The fact that the writers originally intended for her Elsa to be the villain doesn't justify how the parents were written because she WASN'T the bad guy in the final movie, was she?

There's a video series about 'How [Insert Movie Here] Should Have Ended' and Frozen got that treatment but it started at the beginning with the head troll trying to give the advice and the parents being all 'Soooo... we should teach her to be afraid of her powers?' 'What? No. That's not what I said at all.' 'Sooooo... we should lock her up alone in a castle until she's safe to be around?' 'No! That's a terrible idea. Are you even listening?' 'Conceal don't feel?' 'Oh my gosh, you are terrible parents! Come with me I know who can help.'

And then Elsa ends up at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and they're all singing 'Let It Go' (although they had to change that due to copywrite laws) and Iceman was kind of resentful that he had to say 'the cold doesn't bother me anyway.'

So recognizing that the King and Queen of Arendelle were MESSED UP in how they treated Elsa is not unusual at all.

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I finally got around to seeing Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I wanted to smack the shit out of Richard Dreyfuss. I get that he was possessed in a sense but he was still a pretty awful parent, and he definitely seemed like he didn't give a second thought to the fact that he had children when he decided to go on the space ship.

He was also a pretty shitty dad in Mr. Holland's Opus, although he did come through in the end of his son.

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19 hours ago, methodwriter85 said:

I finally got around to seeing Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I wanted to smack the shit out of Richard Dreyfuss. I get that he was possessed in a sense but he was still a pretty awful parent, and he definitely seemed like he didn't give a second thought to the fact that he had children when he decided to go on the space ship.

 

I remember being appalled by all that when I saw it during its first run- and let's not forget that before that he'd bullied and terrorized his wife &kids and totally destroyed the family home ALL because he was obsessed with that Devil's Tower shape and nothing any of them said or did made any difference. What was most infuriating was all that was played for laughs and the audience was supposed to ID with him and feel his family deserved it because they were 'unenlightened' (and the movie in general seemed condescending to their working class roots).

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4 hours ago, Blergh said:

I remember being appalled by all that when I saw it during its first run- and let's not forget that before that he'd bullied and terrorized his wife &kids and totally destroyed the family home ALL because he was obsessed with that Devil's Tower shape and nothing any of them said or did made any difference. What was most infuriating was all that was played for laughs and the audience was supposed to ID with him and feel his family deserved it because they were 'unenlightened' (and the movie in general seemed condescending to their working class roots).

Don't forget that we're also supposed to root for him to kiss E.T.'s Mom at the end. As soon as I realized that the Mom of the son that goes missing was pretty, I figured we were going to see them have a romantic moment.

One of the sons (I think he was the oldest) was just a little too good at showing his angst about how much of an asshole his father became, and I felt for him. And his wife also had this moment, where she's trying really hard to reach him, and he just doesn't seem to get it. I was really turned off by him as a character because he came off as incredibly callous to the feelings of everybody around him, and he never seems to get it.

I don't think you could get away with that shit in a modern movie. I feel like if the movie were made today, they'd have to change it to Richard being some 30-something slacker who lives with his sister and her family or something.

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In memory of Roy Dotrice, Mozart's dad in Amadeus was the ORIGINAL stage parent, using his son's talent to live vicariously through his fame. Though if it weren't for him, we never would have had such beautiful classical music and operas. Still, as a dad, he was the worst: judgmental, oppressive, repressed, and the way he looked down on Mozart's wife was awful.

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Just read this thread and @Spartan Girl your name reminds me of the movie Spartan where Kristen Bell is the daughter of a senator. She is kidnapped and sold as a slave in an Arab country. I watched that movie more than 10 years ago so I don't remember all the details, but if I remember correctly her father was involved in the kidnapping because he wanted to get rid of his daughter. Her bad behavior reflected badly on him and the sympathy from having his daughter kidnapped would help his chances in the election.

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Maybe it's a little late to get in the game but, speaking of "Close Encounters", where was Melinda Dillon's toddler's male DNA donor when their son got abducted by aliens? ALL the ever said was that she was a single parent but  whether this was due to distance or death was never mentioned. Even if the unmentioned male DNA donor  was breathing but had wanted nothing more to do with Miss Dillon's character after their split, why wouldn't he have at least been supportive of trying to find out what had happened to their son if not helped her do so? And if he was dead, how tough would it have been for her to have said so instead of leaving his whereabouts as mysterious as their son's?

Edited by Blergh
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I mentioned it already in the UO thread, but IMO that movie is one of the worst offenders since it doesn't seem as if its quite aware how bad things are: Steve Jobs is so brutal on that front. Every rewatch makes Lisa's, the daughter's, situation even more horrible for me. Talk about worst parents ever. I know Sorkin took a lot of creative licence and the situation he portrayed actually says more about his priorities as a writer than about the reality (at least I hope that is the case, because...geez), but still. She's stuck with a mother who is emotionally manipulative, emotionally abusive and it's hinted at that she's also physically abusive at her worst, who refuses to take on the responsibilities of an adult and forces Lisa to be the grown-up and caretaker in the relationship.

And her father first doesn't want to admit his paternity, then is cold and emotionally withholding and only offers affection in small, conditional doses. Then Sorkin wanted to swipe that away with a treacly redemption arc or whatever, I think. IMO Fassbender made the right decision to undercut the unconvincing sentimentality of the last act by letting the manipulative streak and coldness of Jobs shine through the "reconciliation" at the end. So yeah, dramatically it saved the screenplay from itself to some degree. But the consequences for Lisa again: She's somewhat broken free emotionally from her father. But then he reels her in again and she's still so heartbreakingly desperate for his love and approval, and he might be as sincere as he knows how to be and he probably loves her in his own dysfunctional way. But you can just see it playing out like that again and again: He's cold and demanding, then will offer some degree of affection to bind her again when she threatens to break away from him. On an emotional level, that movie is a total horror story for that girl.

And the thing is: I think Sorkin didn't quite grasp how dire he had made things for her. Sure, other characters refer to her crappy childhood, but in a more off-hand manner. And he also thought the treacly, false "happy end" would be enough. Fassbender seemed to have a better grasp of the complications...and when I think about it, him undercutting the narrative actually makes it less creepy than a fake cheerful ending would have done. It's more honest in how depressing it all is, if that makes sense...

Edited by katha
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Lots of shitty parents in It.  Bev's disgusting pervert dad definitely tops the list, but there was also Henry Bower's abusive dad (no wonder the kid was such a horrible creepy) and Eddie's smothering mother, who actually duped her son nto thinking that he was always sick and gave him placebos just to keep him close.  Ugh.

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12 minutes ago, Spartan Girl said:

Lots of shitty parents in It.  Bev's disgusting pervert dad definitely tops the list, but there was also Henry Bower's abusive dad (no wonder the kid was such a horrible creepy) and Eddie's smothering mother, who actually duped her son nto thinking that he was always sick and gave him placebos just to keep him close.  Ugh.

And the benefit of watching It was . . what again?  That said, I totally agree with you re how horrible these DNA donors seem to have been!

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4 hours ago, Blergh said:

And the benefit of watching It was . . what again?  That said, I totally agree with you re how horrible these DNA donors seem to have been!

Morbid curiosity. Hey, it WAS a good horror movie. Anyway, Stephen King specializes in horror parents almost as much as the forces of darkness, LOL.

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The parents Caroline and Lloyd played by Judy Davis and Kevin Spacey in The Ref.  He was a buttoned-down, resentful drone and she was a flighty, angry, combative whiner.  They both needed permission from the man with the gun (Denis Leary as Gus) to say what had really been on their minds for 15-plus years.  Glynis Johns as the poisonous matriarch gets an honorable mention here. 

Edited by navelgazer
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Miguel's grandmother in Coco was kind of horrible, trying to browbeat Miguel out of giving up his love of music. And her enforcing the "no music" rule in the family was just ridiculous, considering that she wasn't the one that had been "abandoned" by a musician.

And even though Imelda was more likable than the grandmother, the fact that she initially wouldn't send Miguel back to the land of the living unless he gave up music -- and kept the other relatives from helping  -- was worse. You'll let your great-great-grandson stay trapped and cursed just because he doesn't kow-tow to your way? That's so wrong on so many levels.

Edited by Spartan Girl
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What About Bob?

I agree that Richard Dreyfuss's character's certainly needs to tweak his parenting skills, but can I just say that it's grossly unfair how Julie Hagerty isn't called out for her utterly shitty, questionable parenting? She thinks nothing of not only letting Bob, a middle-aged man who's one of her husband's patients, stay with them... but she blithely lets him share a room with her preteen son.

No! No no no no no no no no NO!! Fuck that messed up noise! Even if I were to let a middle-aged stranger stay in my house, he is most definitely not sharing a room with my prepubescent son! COUCH FOR YOU, BUDDY!

As if that weren't enough, she just lets Bob (a man she's known less than 24 hours) just hang out with her kids! What the hell is wrong with you, lady?!

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I kind of loved that Hailey in the Florida Project was depicted as being an absolutely awful mother, but not in a typical 'why do you love making me hit you?" way or a "nothing you ever do will be good enough" way. She was awful because she had a big chip on her shoulder, didn't want to do anything but drink and smoke, and in general was an emotionally stunted woman who acted like a rebellious 15-year old. (Which I'm guessing is when she got pregnant or when she became dependent on substances.)

I loved the contrast with Hailey and Ashley, who was clearly trying to make a better life for her and her son but wasn't really getting there despite trying hard. Ashley wasn't perfect but she did want to work hard and keep her son away from bad influences. I like to think Ashley eventually got her and her son out of that lifestyle.

Edited by methodwriter85
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N'Jobu, aka Kilmonger's dad in Black Panther.

Wait, let me finish.

For as much blame as T'Challah's dad gets for orphaning his nephew and leaving him behind to preserve Wakanda's secrecy, let's not forget that N'Jobu could have taken his son back to Wakanda any time he wanted to. He admits as much in the ghost dream sequence. But he didn't. Instead, he sold out his homeland to a terrorist and resorted to miliantism (even if he was trying to bust Kilmonger's mom out of jail as the screenwriters said in an interview). So even though he loved his son, he wound up screwing him over just as much as his brother did.

And Black Manta's dad in Aquaman raised his son to be a terrorist/pirate/murder. Arthur summed it up beautifully: "That's your son?! Shame on you."

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6 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

N'Jobu, aka Kilmonger's dad in Black Panther.

Wait, let me finish.

For as much blame as T'Challah's dad gets for orphaning his nephew and leaving him behind to preserve Wakanda's secrecy, let's not forget that N'Jobu could have taken his son back to Wakanda any time he wanted to. He admits as much in the ghost dream sequence. But he didn't. Instead, he sold out his homeland to a terrorist and resorted to miliantism (even if he was trying to bust Kilmonger's mom out of jail as the screenwriters said in an interview). So even though he loved his son, he wound up screwing him over just as much as his brother did.

And yet he is still only somewhere in the middle if you rank all MCU dads from best to worst.

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(edited)
9 hours ago, Kel Varnsen said:

And yet he is still only somewhere in the middle if you rank all MCU dads from best to worst.

Which says a lot about how crappy the MCU dads are. At best they are distant and/or keep secrets -- like Howard Stark and Odin (who also banished/imprisoned his kids as discipline, though to be fair Loki and Hela deserved it). At worst they control and manipulate their kids and kill everyone else their children care about.

So Thanos and Ego would definitely win shittiest MCU dad, followed by Thunderbolt Ross (because I hate his guts and he cared more about power than his own daughter and didn't hesitate to mess with her love life to suit his own ends).

Edited by Spartan Girl
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On 1/26/2019 at 4:21 PM, Spartan Girl said:

N'Jobu, aka Kilmonger's dad in Black Panther.

Wait, let me finish.

For as much blame as T'Challah's dad gets for orphaning his nephew and leaving him behind to preserve Wakanda's secrecy, let's not forget that N'Jobu could have taken his son back to Wakanda any time he wanted to. He admits as much in the ghost dream sequence. But he didn't. Instead, he sold out his homeland to a terrorist and resorted to miliantism (even if he was trying to bust Kilmonger's mom out of jail as the screenwriters said in an interview). So even though he loved his son, he wound up screwing him over just as much as his brother did.

And Black Manta's dad in Aquaman raised his son to be a terrorist/pirate/murder. Arthur summed it up beautifully: "That's your son?! Shame on you."

I agree.  I thought the same when I watched the movie.  I do think T'Chaka was dead wrong for just leaving Erik there but I also think that it was totally a situation of his father's making.

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On 1/27/2019 at 8:36 AM, Spartan Girl said:

Which says a lot about how crappy the MCU dads are. At best they are distant and/or keep secrets -- like Howard Stark and Odin (who also banished/imprisoned his kids as discipline, though to be fair Loki and Hela deserved it). At worst they control and manipulate their kids and kill everyone else their children care about.

So Thanos and Ego would definitely win shittiest MCU dad, followed by Thunderbolt Ross (because I hate his guts and he cared more about power than his own daughter and didn't hesitate to mess with her love life to suit his own ends).

The best dad is obviously Scott Lang (Ant-Man). After that I guess Hawkeye. Hank Pym is probably somewhere with Stark. Odin is probably #3 terrible. He killed a bunch of people with his daughter then decided he didn't want to kill anymore and banished her to somewhere. When he decided he didn't want to be king of Asgard anymore he decided to die leaving his sons to clean up the shitshow that was Hela that they just found out about minutes earlier (resulting in a bunch of dead Asgardians). On top of that you know killing a bunch of Frost Giants and taking off with a baby.

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Bruno's dad in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas because he was a Nazi.

Look, the ending was horrific, and I would never ever wish the death of a child on anyone. But at the same time, am I supposed for feel sorry for a guy who willingly participated in genocide just because his son got caught in the crossfire? Where was your grief and remorse for all the other innocent people -- including children -- that you helped murder? God forgive me for saying this on Easter, but...he deserved that pain.

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On 4/21/2019 at 11:23 AM, Spartan Girl said:

Bruno's dad in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas because he was a Nazi.

Look, the ending was horrific, and I would never ever wish the death of a child on anyone. But at the same time, am I supposed for feel sorry for a guy who willingly participated in genocide just because his son got caught in the crossfire? Where was your grief and remorse for all the other innocent people -- including children -- that you helped murder? God forgive me for saying this on Easter, but...he deserved that pain.

I hear you, but did Elsa (Vera Farmiga) deserve it, too? You could argue that she knew in her heart what was happening at the camp but continued her willful ignorance. That ending..it still haunts me today. 

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5 minutes ago, Ms Blue Jay said:

Boiler Room (2000) is a cult movie that I like and the main character's father is such an asshole.

Love that movie as well. I'm conflicted about the dad. On the one hand, he was very insulting towards his son. So what do you think was his motivation for helping in the end?

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1 minute ago, topanga said:

Love that movie as well. I'm conflicted about the dad. On the one hand, he was very insulting towards his son. So what do you think was his motivation for helping in the end?

He realized he was such a horrible father, I guess, and wanted to make amends.

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4 hours ago, topanga said:

I hear you, but did Elsa (Vera Farmiga) deserve it, too? You could argue that she knew in her heart what was happening at the camp but continued her willful ignorance. That ending..it still haunts me today. 

"Deserve" isn't the word I'd use. She wasn't as active a participant as the dad, true, and she wanted to get away with the kids once she couldn't deny it any more, but...

Like I said, I feel bad for the family, I do. Bruno didn't deserve to die, but again none of the families in the camp deserved to die either.

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11 hours ago, catlover79 said:

How about Mr. and Mrs. Bennet from Pride and Prejudice? Anyone familiar with the book and/or movie needs no explanation!!

Yeah, both are really bad parents. I do like they had Elizabeth realizing the father she loved and adored wasn't a good parent. 

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