Thoughts on Ten Thousand Saints

I saw this film as part of the Indie Film Night at the Art House theater near where I live in upstate New York. I really liked it. The characters had depth and nuance and the story was interesting. Although it was geared towards more of an adolescent audience it still ruminated with me. I really identified with the teen characters and the struggles they had to deal with in the film.

I really like the teenage girl. She was very heartfelt and stole the show from her male teen counterpart and even from the star Ethan Hawke. The problems she had to deal with were hard. She was pregnant, addicted to drugs, and without a father. She also had an overbearing mother who wanted to control her in every way. I really think she showed the troubles that many young teen girls go through during that tough period between childhood and adulthood. Her male counterparts also revealed how difficult teen years can be. Fed up with school, willing to do anything for a release from the troubled times they endure, they couldn't find peace. And their lives end up as disjointed as their parents lives.

I liked this film because it shows teen issues frankly. The characters in this story are everyday people. A hippie mom, a derilect dad, some teens into punk, they are real. You can think of someone you know or even yourself to find a common identity with these characters. So much in film you find characters who aren't real. I was particularly taken with the characters and will be discussing it in my next screenwriting group.

In fact this story starts out as the story of the teen boy. He finds his father in the greenhouse after he has just been found out as a cheating husband. Then the arc of the story follows the young teen guy and his friend who huff some air conditioner liquid, at least I think that's what it was, and his best friend freezes to death. At this point we are still on the teen boy.

It is only with the revelation of Eliza's pregnancy that the story switches over her and she become the driving character in the film. She moves the story forward. Finally, she has the baby and the teen boy is willing to support her.

For whatever reason I was reminded of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath at the end of the film. It is one of my favorite books. I was watching the film and the end of the novel came to me. It is where the old man is given the woman's breast to suck on for nourishment. It seems that the end of Saints is similar. Humans will find themselves in difficult situations. To survive they must compromise and above all help each other. It is the only way we can survive and move forward without depression or worse.