The other night on the way home from the Park Slope Pavilion after
seeing “Little Miss Sunshine,” Smartmom asked Hepcat which actress
should play her if anyone ever makes a movie or a television series of
her life.
It was a silly question. Just a game to pass the time on the walk
home from the theater. Who would make a movie of Smartmom’s life,
anyway?
Then again, why not? Reality TV is very big right now, and the
day-to-day travails of life on Third Street would make a great show
(not to mention Gawker’s Smartmom rip-off, “Diary of a Park Slope Mom”).
For starters, there’s the boom and bust of Hepcat’s computer career.
Then there’s Smartmom’s transition from Park Slope mom to Park Slope
columnist and citizen blogger; Mrs. Kravitz’s donation of a kidney to
her husband; and neighbors dealing with empty nests, financial
setbacks, second marriages, bi-coastal gay relationships, and a son
going off to Iraq.
There’s more than enough for a television series.
“Well, you know, Lillian Gish is my favorite actress of all time,” Hepcat said after a long pregnant pause.
But Smartmom scoffed at the notion that the silent-screen great
would be right to play a very verbal fortysomething (Gish is long dead,
too, but maybe that’s not such a big deal).
“How about Barbara Stanwyck. She’s from Brooklyn isn’t she? Or Judy Holiday?”
Hepcat could tell that he wasn’t earning any brownie points bringing up dead Hollywood starlets.
“For the early years, maybe we could get Leslie Caron.” Now Hepcat
was talking. “Well, you sort of looked like her when I met you.” She
squeezed his hand, clearly flattered.
“Why do I feel like there’s no right answer to this question?” he asked. “It’s like, ‘Do I look fat?’ ”
Hepcat was right. There is no correct answer. Surely, it would take
an actress with the depth of a Meryl Streep or Susan Sarandon to
express the full range of emotions — from zen-like calm to apoplectic —
to play the part of Smartmom.
Once on Seventh Avenue, Smartmom and Hepcat discussed the film they
had just seen, a zany comedy about the Hoovers, a family on the verge
of a psychotic episode, that journeys cross country in a
mustard-colored VW microbus.
The more they talked, the more they realized how much their family
life (and the life of so many families across Brooklyn) is like the
Hoovers: full of stress, disappointment and a multiplicity of moods and
meltdowns (no heroin addict, though, with all due respect to the great
Alan Arkin).
Call them strange. Call them dysfunctional. But the truth about real American families tends to be stranger than fiction.
Of course, there are a lot of differences between the Hoovers and
Smartmom’s clan. Richard, a middle manager who is trying to get rich
with a self-help book scheme, is nothing like Hepcat (who, unlike
Richard, is not played by Greg Kinnear).
But something about his square chin and the way he interacts with his antique VW van reminded Smartmom of her beloved.
And his mid-life quest to do something meaningful certainly brings Hepcat to mind.
Then again, the Oh So Feisty One isn’t like Olive, the adorable
7-year-old who wants to be a beauty queen. Yet her self-confidence, her
guts, and her precociousness did remind Smartmom of her girl from time
to time.
Dwyane, the 15-year-old son who has taken a vow of silence and only
reads Nietzsche, isn’t one bit like Smartmom’s 15-year-old man/boy.
Sure, Teen Spirit was obsessed with the ubermensch for a while, but
he seems to be moving on to the Beat Generation. Vow of silence? Not if
it means giving up those constant cellphone conversations with his
friends.
Yet Dwayne’s very teenage disdain for family and school did remind
Smartmom of Teen Spirit, a little too loud and a little too clear.
But it was Sheryl, the stressed-out wife and mother, who most
reminded Smartmom of herself (not the Toni Collette part of her, of
course).
Like Smartmom, Sheryl has to wrangle her family, a collection of
strikingly different and difficult personalities, and help them exist
together and find their own way.
Sometimes Smartmom feels like an air-traffic controller trying to
avoid collisions between various combinations of family members.
Living in their too-small apartment on Third Street, with such a
cross-country trip worth of problems, needs and aspirations, Smartmom
feels like she is trapped in that VW microbus.
Sheryl, like Smartmom, is the glue that holds the whole shebang
together AND gets dinner on the table, even if is take-out fried
chicken accompanied by a “homemade” green salad.
Smartmom can relate: when she orders a large plain pizza from
Pino’s, she always tosses together a vegetable course consisting of a
bag of Organic Valley pre-washed lettuce, grape tomatoes from the Coop,
and a little Paul Newman’s.
But despite the take-out dinners, the neurosis, the teenage angst and
the mid-life disappointments, the Hoovers are just like so many
families on Third Street, who are evolving together through the good,
the bad, and the ugly.
Ultimately, it is on this journey (in a VW van, a 1980 Volvo or
the subway) that they find out who they are and what they mean to one
another.
Walking up Third Street, Hepcat suddenly shouted out: “How about
Toni Collette?” Smartmom smiled. The down-to-earth, unglamorous actress
might make a very decent Smartmom.
“She doesn’t look remotely like you. But she can definitely play the
kind of person who can deal with one thing after another. Like you.”
Yes, it would take an actress like Toni Colette to portray the up,
down, and sideways motion of the whirly Wonder Wheel of Smartmom’s life.
Is she available?
