Movie: Ramona and Beezus

This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.

Passing the Torch

Plot Overview

Art major Robert Quimby (John Corbett) married Dorothy (Bridget Moynahan) who left a doctor's staff to be a stay-at-home mom once children started to come. Bob took an accounting job to support them and worked his way “crunching numbers” up to VP. The movie opens intro­ducing their burgeoning brood: Picky Picky a “good cat,” entering high school Beatrice “Beezus” (Selena Gomez) who is “perfect,” nine-year-old Ramona (Joey King) a “nuisance,” and still-in-diapers Roberta who's “adorable.” With an add-on made to their house, the older sisters get their own rooms. Beezus starts sporting pig­tails, then puts her hair up, which becomes her. She can't torment Ramona with scary stories at night any more, to play on her over­active imagination, but at school Ramona gives an embellished account of the workmen modifying their house. It shows up on her report card wherein she's depicted as a “bright young student but lacks focus, often day­dreams, disputes the need to spell words correctly, has very little respect for the rules of grammar or rules in general.”

This movie is set in Portland right up the road from Eugene—where I reside—a throw­back to the days of flower children; the counter­culture influence is noticeable. Let's use the perspective of sociologist Bennet Berger:

The literary critic Malcolm Cowley wrote Exile's Return, a book about the experience of American literary expatriates in Europe in the 1920's. In it he treats to some extent the history of bohemian­ism, starting back in the middle of the 19th century with that important document of bohemian history, Henry Murger's Scenes of Bohemian Life. By 1920, Cowley says, bohemia had a relatively formal doctrine, “a system of ideas that could be roughly summarized as follows”:

“The first point in the bohemian doctrine is what Cowley calls ‘The idea of salvation by the child.—Each of us at birth has special potentialities which are slowly crushed and destroyed by a standardized society and mechanical modes of teaching. If a new educational system can be introduced, one by which children are encouraged to develop their own personalities, to [listen!] blossom freely like flowers, then the world will be saved by this new, free generation.’.” (Gagnon & Simon 66–7)

The troubles besetting Ramona could be taken straight from Wassermann:

“School,” so ran the essay, “should open the doors of life to us. It should help us to grow up courageous and yet aware of the dangers that beset us. It should mold us into capable and high-minded men. It should train us to love our teachers, and they in their turn should teach us to love life, our future calling, our fellow-men, the great figures of the past, noble ideas, the joys of friend­ship and communion with Nature. Our teachers should be superior to us. They should meet us with affection, and so make us happy. But is this the case? Does school prepare us for our work in the world? When we leave school, do we know what we ought to become, instead of what we merely are? School makes us a receptacle for information that is and remains dead. Our minds do not develop harmoniously. Nature and life are a dead letter to us, and we shall never comprehend their message.” (155)

The movie works around to Dorothy's sister, the girls' Aunt Bea (Ginnifer Goodwin) now ten years out of high school, marrying her sweet­heart Hobart (Josh Duhamel) from back when. At the wedding Beezus updates her relation to Henry Huggins (Hutch Dano) from friend to boy­friend. Ramona retrieves a dropped wedding ring without committing a gaffe, and she dances with a boy. The teacher Mrs. Meacham (Sandra Oh) cuts a rug (“Go on, now, shake your booty.”) The father is like to take advantage of a new opportunity that opened up. Generational progression is going well.

Ideology

Dad is looking for work, mom is temporarily back in the work force, the children make them­selves useful at home, the neighbor baby sits when the father is out at inter­views, and the house­husband begins a project with Ramona to make “the longest drawing in the world.” It draws attention in certain quarters and Bob gets an offer, though not the most lucrative one on the table.

After relentless wooing, Hobart gets Bea's consent to marriage on the verge of his departure in three days to his two-year gig in Alaska. Their conversation goes like this:

Bea: “We have to go to the court­house and make it official.”

Hobart: “No, we ain't goin' to no stinking court­house. If we're gonna do some­thing crazy, we're gonna do it with style. We're gonna throw a real wedding.”

Bea: “What about a church or food or a wedding dress?”

A woman minister performs the ceremony, which was the best they could do on short notice. A real wedding need only have eligible bride & groom reciting life­long vows duly witnessed. Her rendering ended with, “in sickness and in health, for rich or for poorer, and I promise my love to you.” That comes dangerously close to the liberal alternative, “as long as love shall last,” instead of the traditional, “till death do us part.” Hobart saves it by pledging to “spend the rest of my life” with her.

A courthouse in this country at least could not supply the necessary witnesses in a pinch—it takes two—with­out violating the separation of church and state—marriage being the start of a domestic church,—but they had plenty. Ken Johnson, Th.D. quotes Mathetes—a.d. 130—who studied under Paul: “Christians follow the customs of their native lands in regard to marriage, food, clothing, and conduct. They marry and have children, but they never have abortions. They obey all the laws of their country” (86.)

A disagreement on whether to have a church wedding is typical of couples, who may have other religious differences as well. If in the spirit of the world's longest drawing, we hark back to the very first Christians, written about in the Bible the minister holds, we'd be looking at a newly preached gospel, young couples ever getting married, and their conversions & nuptials not necessarily being synced to avoid mixed marriage. A lot of water having gone under the bridge since then, lets look at Wassermann to get a feel for that time:

“I am to marry a man whom I have only seen once in my life. He is not young, he is not old; he is not noble, he is not base; I do not know him; I know nothing about him, but I am to marry him for business reasons. I am being sold. I am calmly to allow myself to be sold into this fellow's bed. … Among us Jews the girls are sold like houses or plots of land, but you will agree—won't you—that there may be other reasons for marrying. Love, for instance?” (115)

And let's consider the words of Jesus from visionary Maria Valtorta, 631. The Last Teachings before Ascension-Day: (430)

II In the Mosaic religion matrimony is a contract. In the new Christian religion let it be a sacred indissoluble act, on which may the grace of the Lord descend to make of husband and wife two ministers of His in the propagation of the human race. From the very first moments try to advise the consort belonging to the new religion to convert the consort, who is still out of the number of the believers, to enter and become part of it, to avoid those painful divisions of thought, and consequently of peace, that we have noticed also among our­selves. But when it is a question of believers in the Lord, for no reason what­soever what God united is to be dissolved. And when a consort is Christian and is united to a heathen, / advise that consort to bear his/her cross with patience, meekness and also with strength, to the extent of dying to defend his/her faith, but with­out leaving the consort whom he/she married with full consent. This is My advice for a more perfect life in the matri­monial state, until it will be possible, with the diffusion of Christianity, to have marriages between believers. Then let the bond be sacred and indissoluble, and the love holy.

If we were to project the drama in this movie back to those early days, then Ramona's effort to subsidize the family earnings with a lemonade stand & car­wash would translate into the Jewish girl being willing to marry for business reasons. And she might want to maintain her connection to, say, an aunt (“I want you to know that you will always have me around”) who got married earlier to a non-believer. Paul did say, (1Cor. 7:12-14) “If any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. And the woman which hath an husband that believeth not, and if he be pleased to dwell with her, let her not leave him.” If that applies to the married aunt, it applies also to the niece getting married later, as Paul also said, (1Cor. 3:21-22) “all things are yours; Whether … the world, or things present, or things to come; all are your's.” When Ramona moved out of her shared room, her sister gave her her stuff in a box, all those things being hers. When they were faced with poverty, they lamented that they'd be living in “hand-me-down city.” They could have new things once they could afford it. Married already to a non-believer, or getting married to one, are both permissible should the parties be willing. It's an opportunity to convert the other, as, (1Cor. 7:16) “For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband? or how knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy wife?” We would do well to consider historian J.M. Roberts's assessment, “For all the achievements of Paul and his colleagues, this [spread of Christianity] probably owed less to deliberate evangelization than to contagion and osmosis within the Jewish communities of the empire” (63).

Thinking along these lines we might encounter objection from Paul's subsequent admonition, (2Cor. 6:14) “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers—” This verse uses the plural pronoun ‘ye’ and has to do in its original context with the worship and/or Christian service of the Corinthian church as a group. As applied to this movie, the sentiment expressed that the cat might get reincarnated would not be welcome in church.

If we want to impose something from this passage of Paul into his prior teaching on marriage, and respect Paul's consideration for the individual's preferences, then we'd go to his following rhetorical questions and match (singular) case with, (2Cor. 6:15) “what part has he that believeth with an infidel?” This difference would engender give-and-take conflicts within a marriage, which Paul intimates could happen.

Paul goes on to say, (2Cor. 7:2) “we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man.” If he had forced the breakup of a pending marriage, a father who would have stood to gain would think him­self defrauded as in cases of “houses or plots of land.” But Paul lets people make up their own minds, so we can't put it on him. These assessments are set in stone being part of the canon of scripture, giving us permission to enter a mixed marriage, though most Christians these days would demur.

Production Values

“” (2010) was directed by Elizabeth Allen Rosen­baum who did a fine job. The screen­play was written by Laurie Craig and Nick Pustay, loosely based on Beverly Cleary's 1955 book, Beezus and Ramona. It stars Joey King, Selena Gomez and Bridget Moynahan. King steals the show. All the actors did well, especially the children.

The movie is rated G. The charming graphics are based on models, which goes easy on the eyes. It was filmed on location in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Runtime is 1¾ hours.

Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation

This is a good family movie with characters of different generations but the well-being of children is fore­front. Some of the humor was goofy, but I didn't mind. It was very entertaining. Good material for all ages. Highly recommended.

Movie Ratings

Action factor: Decent action scenes. Suitability for children: Suitable for all ages. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Good for Groups. Suspense: A few suspenseful moments. Overall movie rating: Four stars out of five.

Works Cited

Scripture was cited from the King James Version, Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software, print.

Berger, Bennet. “Hippie Morality – More Old Than New,” From Transaction/Society magazine, reprinted in John Gagnon & William Simon, The Sexual Scene. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1973. Print.

Mathetes, Epistle to Diognetus 5. Quoted in Ken Johnson, Ancient Church Fathers. Copyright 2010 by Ken Johnson. San Bernadino, CA, 07 April 2018. Download print.

Roberts, J.M. A History of Europe. New York: Penguin Press, 1997. Print.

Valtorta, Maria. Near Sephoris, with Johanon's Peasants. in The Gospel as Revealed to Me. Vol. 4. Translated from Italian by Nicandro Picozzi, M.A., D.D.  Revised by Patrick McLaughlin, M.A. This 2nd English Edition has now replaced the First English Edition, The Poem of the Man-God. Web.

Wassermann, Jacob. The Dark Pilgrimage. Originally published in Germany under the title Die Juden Von Zirndorf (The Jews of Zirndorf). New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1933. Print.

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