Morning: Courageous and Affecting

On occasion, the experience of a particular film can be dramatically different for one segment of the audience. For most people, a movie connects with them to the degree to which they can place themselves in the shoes of the characters within the given story. For this unique segment, however, no such empathy is needed. They went through a similar experience in their own lives, and seeing it mirrored or even recreated on the silver screen can inspire a metaphysical, therapeutic, and even cathartic journey. To use the new multiplex releases as an example, men who have struggled with porn addiction will likely relate more to the plight of Don Jon, while flight attendants will nod their heads in knowing agreement at the anecdotal travel scenes in Baggage Claim. In that case, the movie can transcend its aesthetic shortcomings to feel real and uncannily relevant; confirming the validity of the viewers’ lived experiences. Such is the case with Morning, a film about overcoming grief. Anyone who has dealt with the loss of a loved one, particularly parents of children who departed prematurely, will find in this film a relatable, earnest, and unflinching portrayal of learning to hold onto life in the face of death.

Alice and Mark are the parents of a five-year-old boy whose untimely passing is gradually detailed. Over a period of four days, each beginning at approximately 6:30 AM with the same routine and accompanying series of shots, their housekeeper makes her pilgrimage across Los Angeles to their house, located in a more affluent part of town. We meet Alice (Jeanne Tripplehorn) and Mark (Leland Orser) as they conclude an attempt to make love before he goes to work. At first out-of-focus, their session ends with Alice staring helplessly up at the ceiling, concerned about her missing wedding ring while Mark puts on his business suit. Their brief time together comes crashing down when Mark refuses her pleas to stay home, resulting in a broken window and two near collisions with a stray dog. Soon they are both on their own separate journeys: Alice, through malls, suburban houses, hotels, and doctors’ offices; Mark, returning home, breaking down, and coming face to face with the remnants of his little boy. Meanwhile, the housekeeper, named in the credits as Lluvia (Spanish for ‘rain’), continues to make her pilgrimage, lighting candles and setting up an informal altar at the house’s steps.

The bare bones of the premise somewhat resembles that of Rabbit Hole, but the film takes a very different tack. A cynical viewer may describe the narrative as “breaking stuff and throwing up.” Indeed, there are many scenes in which plates, fish bowls, flower vases, and other objects are destroyed, or where Mark or Alice vomit into toilets. At first this may seem unnecessary or melodramatic, but when it gives way to moments of healing, we understand that the couple are working through their grieving processes, albeit very differently. Their typical roles switch: Mark becomes the stay-at-home father, possibly even regressing into the mindset of a child for a period, while Alice takes on the sterile world of hotel stays and medical appointments. Recreating his son’s playtime, Mark frantically eats Froot Loops and Spaghetti-O’s, building towers of Legos and Oreos while cartoons play in the background. He also ingests painkillers and sleeping pills, passing out on the floor under his bed. Meanwhile, Alice finds little understanding in well-meaning friends, later rebuking the advances of a fellow traveler and the kindness of a hotel clerk. She repeatedly remarks to other people, “You have such beautiful eyes,” perhaps noting their resemblance to her son’s. She finally finds what she’s looking for in the office of Dr. Goodman (Laura Linney), who assures her that, for a multitude of reasons, “You’re supposed to be here.” The film is about healing, about coming home, about restoring our hearts after the unspeakable happens. When the audience finally discovers the hiding place of Alice’s wedding ring, the entire narrative comes into tragic focus, and one segment of their grieving process comes to its conclusion. Ultimately, that conclusion is very cathartic, and I left the theater surprised by how much the film had affected me.

It is worth noting that Morning was written and directed by Leland Orser, who also plays Mark. The feature was expanded from a short film revolving entirely around the father—when fleshing out the story, Orser decided to shift the focus to the mother, who is played, not coincidentally, by his real-life wife, Jeanne Tripplehorn. The story clearly derives from Orser’s deeply felt concerns and understandable fears about the ever-present risk of losing his loved ones. It feels autobiographical in the hypothetical sense, as though Orser and Tripplehorn were working out how they would react if they lost a child, and seeing if they would be able to recover. As his feature-directing debut, for Orser to narrow this film’s focus to such nakedly personal matters is courageous.

Occasionally Morning falters from its usually assured footing, hitting notes too quickly or teetering on the edge of maudlin sentimentality in the scenes centering around Mark. Would a more experienced director have made a more proficient picture? Perhaps, but it would likely lack the fingerprints caked with blood and sweat that Orser leaves on every scene, whether he’s directing or performing. Those fingerprints are necessary to have the full effect on that subsection of the audience comprised by parents who have gone through a similar journey. For those people, I suspect that Morning will mean a great deal, and further assist in their journey to heal and come home.