I’m (not) like a bird

 I listened to the Nelly Furtado song I’m Like A Bird Nick Hornby writes about in his book 31 Songs sometime ago and I quite liked it. It spoke to me and for the rhythm it has I use it when I go on walks and need to escape the real world. The video was simple and there was no profanity or vulgarity anywhere which would be unreal in this day and age.

The song talks about not knowing where her home or soul is. Those are weighty matters considering most of the time I don’t even know where my phone is. Since it remains mostly in silent mode and sometimes finding it is actually a bother. Like today when the phone and I were in the same room and I still had trouble finding it. Before you ask me, no I don’t keep it in vibration mode well because it vibrates and that dilutes the effect of silence! I’m digressing but I do know where my home is. And beyond the noise of constant chatter of my mind is my soul, I think, now that I prefer silence I have some answers. If not, I am in real trouble.

A Minor Incident

A Minor Incident by Badly Drawn Boy is a song I really like and it’s proven hard to forget. The lyrics make sense and the tune is easy to latch on to. The scenario for which it is used in the movie is quite specific. Toni Collette plays Fiona, Marcus’s mother. The song is Fiona’s plea to Marcus (before she offs herself) to carry on living without her. And that she will be watching over him from up above the clouds (provided she goes to heaven). I first heard it in About a Boy which I found really endearing. Not many people agree with me on this but I think it was one of the more mature performances of Hugh Grant.

 

The movie is fun to watch because it has a good dose of tongue in cheek humour. The interactions of the worldly wise Marcus (played to perfection by Nicholas Hoult) who’s twelve with a thirty something, yet to grow up Will (played by Hugh Grant) who doesn’t work but goofs around, and has no real purpose in life except perhaps finding people to date and be totally unattached. The hassle free life is his goal and he manages to live this way till his life collides with Marcus’s. It’s what they bring to each others lives and how they are both changed and see a new way of life viewing it through each others prisms that forever alters their world views. The dialogues are funny and Nick Hornby has to be given due credit because it is based on his novel of the same name. I have read it and it was good but I liked the movie better than the book. Sacrilege, right? Honestly, I always try to read the book before seeing the movie if I know that the movie is based on a book but I didn’t know that this time around. May be I should read it again.

The movie begins with these lines –

Will: All men are islands.

(taken from imdb)

But it ends on a very different note. Let me go watch it again. You guys have a great Sunday.