Here’s the list of ones I saw:  Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, Doubt, Milk,and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. I recommend each of these films, and all of them have connections to memoir, even though none of them were based on memoirs.  They are all personal narratives about identity, character, fate, truth, and age, perennial memoir themes.

Slumdog Millionaire is based on the novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup.  Even though it is a novel, I think it relevant to a memoir blog because of its inventive plot and its theme.  The triumph of Ram Mohammed Thomas, the main character of both the novel and the film, comes from either incredibly luck or his destiny, whichever you prefer.  He escapes death many times in the mean streets of Mumbai, manages to reach adulthood, and gets the chance to go on India’s version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?  Every time he has to answer a new question, his own experience yields the correct answer.  It looks like incredible luck, or even cheating, to the audience.  But the film audience sees it as destiny.

I left the theater in Fort Myers, where I saw this movie, mulling over the thought that my life has been a series of pressure-packed moments, also.   I don’t like the commercial metaphor of the game show, but it will do as well as any, I suppose.  And whenever the stakes were highest in my life, I always drew on some story or experience in the past in order to “win”–to find the strength to accept the new challenge and to overcome the new obstacle.

Memoirs, our memories, are human levelers.  You may be a Bollywood star or a slum dweller, but first, you are a human being.  Your brain, heart, spirit connect you to all other human beings, and your stories not only hold you together.  They hold all of us together.  This idea may or may not be powerful enough to win an Oscar for Slumdogs this year, but it will not fade quickly.  It’s an eternal winner!

The destiny of each of our lives comes from paying close attention to what we love, hate, and desire.  The more we know about story structure, therefore, the more we navigate our lives with awareness.  The joy of being aware is that the smallest of experiences can equal the large.

During this vacation, I tracked my inner happiness barometer and discovered that suggesting a trip to Starbucks after Stuart and I mailed off our Christmas presents, having him respond with enthusiasm, and then splurging on a mocha with whipped cream for me and a caramel apple spice for him, gave us both disproportionate delight.  We emptied out the change we keep in the car into the tip jar, and had another thrill when the young man behind the counter said “thank you!”  The dollar bill folded into the Salvation Army bucket at Macy’s elicited a broad smile from a woman ringing the bell.  Having been bell ringers myself, Stuart and I knew that just a few of these exchanges make all the difference when you stand in the cold.

Yesterday I had the flu, so happiness was when Stuart brought me ice and a diet 7-Up and put clean sheets on the bed.

Some happiness comes from accomplishment.  But the difference between finishing a doctorate and getting rid of all the accumulated paper on the desk is smaller than most people imagine.  Gaining fame and riches without gaining appreciation, attention, awareness, and gratitude is less satisfying than doing small things with attention and love, day after day.