BF131384

Professor Mathew Barrett Human Growth Development Film Response April 15, 2012

** Please don’t eat the daisies **  The developmental and psychological issues in this film are mainly conflict resolution between Larry Mackay the hard working stressed out father and his supporting stay at home wife Kate Mackay. Some examples from the movie that show this is when Larry is critiquing his friend (Sheldon’s) play and the reviews that he made where not very positive and was saying the main actress (Deborah) was terrible and she needed more talent besides just wiggling her fanny. So there became a brawl between the two of them and Deborah made her first move by slapping him twice in front of the public and all the tabloids where around to see it. As you can see Deborah is a high quality, spoiled, gets everything she wants, craves attention kind of woman. After all of this blew up Larry and his wife Kate go to dinner and try to have nice dinner but Larry just gets all flustered and can’t get it out of his head how Deborah had the nerve to slap him not just once but twice. So Kate try’s to support her husband by telling him “to forget all about it and everything will be fine now let’s drink our wine and forget about it.” This was about 15 minutes into the movie. Kate is showing affection to her husband. There is also a man named Joe and he is an odd guy but nice fellow and he wants Larry to critique his play that he wrote. Now before Larry actually reads his paper Joe goes out of his way and helps anyway he can, like take care of his children, takes out his dog and carries him around because apparently the dog is scarred of everything. When Larry finally gets to reading it he tells Joe everything that is wrong with it and Joe starts to get offensive and wants his paper back and tells Larry that he didn’t even give his paper a chance and then they both start fighting with one another and Joe ends up storming out the door. This is just not agreeing with one another and can’t come to an agreement because both of them are hot headed. The intent of the author in showing these issues captures the perils of motherhood, wifehood, selfhood, love and other assorted challenges. For example they have four spoiled boys that don’t listen that well and like to irritate there poor mother. In the movie Kate ask one of her boys David (the oldest boy) to help sip up her new dress that she has been trying to fit into and lost 5 pounds for. While he was trying to sip it up he had to put his two cents in and say “I told you she should have lost 10 pounds to fit in her new dress.” Then the middle child Jordan commented and said “It looks like she’s going to bust.” 5 minutes into the movie. These boys are around ages 12 to 1 years old and they are learning all different things at this age like the youngest Adam who is 1 years old and the older boys’ show him how to drop wet paper bags on top of other people’s heads this is the imitation stage for Adam. Kate also has her typical standards for a housewife. For example when they all sit down for breakfast Larry starts to complain to her that this is not the bread he eats and that she should have already known that. And Kate came back at him and said “well the store is open until 1 you have time to go get it yourself” and he looks at her like “what did you just say” and right away apologizes for saying what she had said. This was about 22 minutes into the movie. They are learning to compromise with one another. She is also a very sweet woman who is kind to everybody. With Larry on the other hand he is your typical father who works to feed and take care of his children and wife but never spends that much time with them. For example when he is home one day his youngest son Adam calls the dog (hobo) his dad and Larry runs over to him and he picks him up and says no I’m your daddy and the baby doesn’t say anything. Also when Kate has to go to the school because her younger child George got his head stuck in a stool and the teachers couldn’t get him out and she just grabs a saw and start cutting away at the wood and says aloud to her son who is complaing to “shut up stupid” let me remind you that this is a proper catholic school; but she doesn’t care she may be sweet but she is a little rough around the edges but it shows me that she doesn’t care what anybody thinks and will do whatever she has to.  The developmental domains or psychological fields are most relevant to the issues by career vs. home life, ego and conflict resolution. The movie starts to spice up a little bit when the couples both have to come to an agreement on either to movie to the country side or stay in the city sense they were going to have to leave their apartment in three weeks for they both forgot that they were selling it. There is a scene that shows that they have communication issues. For example when the seller came into their home they look at each other and he tells Kate that he is looking at another apartment and plans on staying in the city. And she looks at him and says “we are supposed to discuss these things.” He gets very defensive and says “I just can’t think on my own?” this is about 35 minutes into the movie. They get in this argument more because Kate wants to move to the country side and she uses reverse psychology by telling him she is selfish and he needed to do what is best for him and after she said all of these things he took it all back and told her that they can move to the country. When they arrived to the country it was absolutely insane because Kate wanted to refurnish the whole house and there where construction people there every day and Larry just couldn’t take it anymore and Kate could see that this was not fair for him so she told him to book an apartment in New York and stay there as long as he needed to, to get things done. When he arrives back to New York this is where the conflict resolution starts to come back up when Deborah stops by to see Mr. Larry and tries to come to an agreement with him and is getting a little too close for comfort if you know what I mean. This will show how Larry will be faithful to his wife when Deborah try’s to work her magic and get into bed with him but he says in a middle of her sentence “ I love my wife” and she response with “ so much for morals.” This was 40 minutes into the movie. This is where the ego comes into play because Deborah is not used to a man telling her no about anything. She gets what she wants when she wants. But sense this did not happen she by far did not give up on Mr. Larry. This would be Deborah being obsessed with Larry. For example when both of them are on television and his wife is watching it and Deborah knows that she is watching she says things like “me and Mr. Mackay have been seeing each other very frequently and we always say, the ship is about to sink but of course that is our little secret” while she does a wink face in front of the camera. Before they went on commercial the oldest child David says can we watch Frankenstein instead you can see dad anytime and Kate response with “is there any difference.” Kate is in the jealousy stage and her mother has to knock some sense into her and tells her “you need to go out there and not neglect him, then he will for sure go to her, you need to put yourself together and get the house together.” 48 minutes into the movie. So Kate does exactly what her mother says gets the whole house in ship shape and when Larry comes home he is impressed and try’s to find Kate but she is nowhere to be found this is because she is at the school learning a play for the school. When he founds out where she is he sits down and watches them practice and then he come to realize that this is one of his plays he wrote a long time ago and it was a lousy play he asked Kate where she found it and she got it from there friend the play writer Sheldon and he was trying to double cross him and make fun of him for his play that he made in college. He told Kate she was not allowed to go on with the show and she was devastated because everyone worked so hard and the play was in a week but he simply replied with and “I don’t care!” hour into the movie. This is where the conflict start to come back and she tells him that he does not care about other people anymore and that he has become ugly towards everyone. He has changed his state of mind because of everything that has been going on. They both take a break from one another and when he is just lying on his couch the doorbell rings and it is Joe the man who wanted him to read his play and he told Larry that he is sorry for over reacting and he just wasn’t taking his criticism. Larry tells him that he actually liked his paper and wanted him too actually to pursue with it and Deborah came in and wants to tell Larry she is sorry and to forgive her for her actions. She was having a guilty feeling. Then Kate’s mother steps in and has a one on one with him and tells him that he was right and for him not to let Kate boss him around and this is opposite reinforcement because he was the one that was in the wrong as well. So he meets Kate at the new home and they both come to realize that none of it matters and they fall in love all over again. They have that feeling of trust and loyalty. Even though this movie did not win any Oscars it got great reviews. =Bibliography= __Please don’t eat the daisies.__ Charles, Walters. VHS. Jean Kerr, 1957 Boyd, Denise. __Lifespan Development__. Boston: Pearson custom, 2009

__Subject Matter—10 points out of 20__ You need textbook citations to show that you understand the specific relevant theories

__Higher-Order Thinking—15 points out of 20__ : You show that you have found depth in this show, but you do not relate that to the textbook concepts.

__Organization--30 points out of 30__ Despite the lack of citations, you correctly identify developmental issues throughout the storyline.

__ Format--5 points out of 10 __

Good details and references, but you have no in-text citations to those references.

__Grammar/Punctuation/Spelling--8 points out of 10__ You have a few spelling errors that lead to confusion.

__Readability/Style--6 points out of 10__ Awkward paragraph transitions--try breaking them apart using empty lines (hit "enter" twice).

Grade: 74/100