As writer and director Sean Baker ( The Florida Project ) once said in an interview: "Family is what you survive together." Modern cinema has finally begun to show that survival isn't a single triumphant moment. It’s a thousand small, unglamorous days of showing up anyway.
Recent films have replaced melodrama with complex interpersonal dynamics :
Let’s start with the villain. For a century, stepmothers had it rough. From Snow White to Hansel & Gretel , the stepmother was coded as jealous, vain, and murderous. In the 80s and 90s, this evolved into the yuppie stepdad (think The Parent Trap ’s Meredith Blake, who wanted to ship the twins off to Switzerland).
These films, and others like them, highlight common themes and challenges associated with blended families, including: