The Dead Poets Society Influence

My first meaningful cinematic experience happened at the tenderest age

of 7. It must have been around a holiday as I recall the feeling that

everyone was home and all activity was hovering around the kitchen.

People were watching a movie on the VCR that my father had cleverly

revealed as a new purchase by teasing us with a copy of Back to the

Future and then answering the question of “But how will we watch it?”

It was The Dead Poets Society. THE PREEMINENT COMING-OF-AGE CLASSIC! I

instantly developed a crush on Robert Sean Leonard and I’m proud to

say that he was my first human crush. Up until then I had only had

eyes for the cartoon Egon from Ghostbusters and a rendering of a

bespectacled boy riding a hot air balloon in a picture book I had.

The suicide of Leonard’s character knocked the wind out of me. I don’t

think I even knew what suicide was before I saw that movie, and here

was the love of my life offing himself after a brilliant performance

in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Damn it, Kurtwood Smith! He didn’t want

to be a doctor!

Ever since, I’ve had a majorly soft spot for coming-of-age movies. As

a depressed college student I went to see Garden State in the theater

and silently wept alone through the movie and the whole drive home.

Most recently, I watched Youth in Revolt and afterwards demanded that

my husband shave down to a pencil mustache (he did).

The first feature I wrote was, to my slight embarrassment, a coming-of-

age flick. For some reason, I feel the need to apologize whenever I

mention the script to anyone. I have to offer a disclaimer – “I know,

it’s stupid, but I wrote a coming-of-age story.” Why? Preston Garrett

suggested that coming-of-age stories that are written by people in the

middle of coming-of-age lack perspective.

I’m 27 and I’ve taken to writing comedy. Perhaps I could bookend my

career with coming-of-age stories and finally write a good one when

I’m what Preston referred to as an “old fart”.