As a writer and professor in theater and film, I watch a lot of movies. But some of my favorite movies have become unbearable since I became a mom just two months ago. It’s like all of the dark and scary things have become even darker and downright terrifying! Now that I have a child of my own, any movie having to do with kids in jeopardy, aging/ill parents or a devastated world feel too real and upsetting… and let’s face it — most good movies have at least one of those things going for it.
Add to that the emotional cyclone that is raging inside my postpartum body, and I’m a perfect storm of over-sensitivity.
Unfortunately, each of the following films has had me breaking out the tissue and crying a river on my (very patient) husband’s shoulder. If you’re a new or sensitive mom, take my advice and avoid them at all costs.
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‘Children Of Men’
Image Credit: Giphy.com I love dystopian dramas, so I put Children of Men on my must-watch list for my screenwriting class. Bad idea. You try explaining to a class full of college students why you’re bawling at a movie you’ve seen a dozen times. Maybe it’s the futility of a world where the only pregnant woman on the planet gives birth in a refugee camp and then gets kidnapped by radicals so they can use her baby for “the cause”… but I’m just guessing.
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‘Room’
Image Credit: Giphy.com A movie about a woman who is kidnapped and forced to live inside a small room where she gives birth to a child who doesn’t get to see the outside world until he’s 5… Do I even have to explain why this movie is ugly-cry material?
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‘The Hunger Games’
Image Credit: Giphy.com I’m a huge fan of The Hunger Games. I’ve probably watched the first film at least two dozen times. So when I popped it in the DVD player the other day while the baby slept, I thought it would be a fun escape. Nope. Not even close. Children fighting each other to the death at the hands of a totalitarian regime is the most depressing thing ever. My husband has hidden my The Hunger Games collection until I can be trusted not to ugly cry at the dark side of human nature all afternoon.
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‘Finding Nemo’
Image Credit: Giphy.com I’ve seen this movie several times, but now that I have my own little nibbler to love and hold? I can’t handle it! When that stupid Aussie fisherman scoops Nemo up in his net, I want to scream! The movie was playing on TV the other day and I wound up watching it through big, fat, ridiculous mommy tears.
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‘Bambi’
Image Credit: Giphy.com OK, yes, anyone who sees it knows that Bambi is one of the saddest Disney movies ever. But when a friend gave me a Disney collection as a baby gift, I thought I’d give the film a second chance. A movie about a deer whose mother gets killed on camera? Disney was a sick S.O.B. (And so is my friend!)
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‘A.I.’
Image Credit: Giphy.com Words cannot convey the deep hatred I have for this movie after catching approximately half of it on a friend’s TV last week. I was socially starved, so I sat on their couch chatting while they cooed over how adorable my son is, while A.I. played in the background. The movie centers on a child robot programmed to feel love who is cast aside by his ‘mother’ once she has a ‘real’ baby. I feigned fatigue in order to leave early so I could bawl in the car.
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‘Steel Magnolias’
Image Credit: Giphy.com Steel Magnolias was on TV the other day, and I was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Then I cried over my breastfeeding son like a crazy woman, wondering what is wrong with me to think I could handle the movie in the first place. The movie is really a double punch to the mom-gut because when (Spoiler alert!) Shelby dies, not only do you witness her mother’s incredible grief, but you bawl your eyes out for her sweet baby too. I’m actually starting to cry all over again just thinking about it…
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‘Looper’
Image Credit: Giphy.com A sci-fi movie about a time-traveling Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt should have been a safe choice, but hiding behind the big action sequences is a heartbreaking mother/son story starring a fierce Emily Blunt that left me all kinds of teary eyed.
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‘Dumbo’
Image Credit: Giphy.com What kind of a jerk makes a children’s movie about an adorable baby elephant who gets separated from his mother, ostracized and neglected by his peers and exploited by his human caretaker? Walt-freaking-Disney. I’m not saying re-watching this monstrosity of a film post-partum gave me my ugliest cry of all time, but it wasn’t pretty.
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‘The Lovely Bones’
Image Credit: Giphy.com Hmmm, a movie about the ghost of a young girl who is tragically murdered and her grieving family trying to make sense of it all? Do yourself a favor and run, don’t walk, away from this film. I just. Can’t. Even.
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‘The Professional’
Image Credit: Giphy.com Yes, Natalie Portman is adorable in this… but that only makes the story harder to swallow. Portman plays a young girl whose messed up parents wind up getting killed by a dirty DEA agent, so she teams up with the assassin down the hall in her apartment building to learn how to exact her revenge. It’s a great movie but messed up on so many levels that my new mommy-brain can’t even begin to process all the upsetting feels.
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‘A Little Princess’
Image Credit: Giphy.com When you’re a new parent, the last thing you want to think about is orphaning your new baby. But this seemingly sweet movie about a precocious and optimistic young girl is an absolute tear-jerker. First, the girl’s mother dies, then her father drops her off at a boarding school before finding his ruin. She winds up being treated worse than Cinderella by the boarding school mistress whose job it is to mind her, and suffers all sorts of miseries as a result. Thankfully, her father’s business partner saves her at the end, but holy moly, what a depressing journey!
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‘The NeverEnding Story’
Image Credit: Giphy.com OK, I always cry when Atreyu’s horse Artax dies in the Swamp of Sadness, but I was completely unprepared for how devastated I would be thinking about Bastian’s tragic backstory. The fact that this poor kid not only lost his mother, but then is bullied every day by jerk kids and has a father who can’t cope? I’m not saying the movie is now impossible for me to watch, but it’s going to be a while before I can even consider going on that emotional journey again.
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‘Life of Pi’
Of all the movies not to watch as a new mom, this one has to be the absolute, hands down, most heartbreaking. This movie had me upset for days. Oh sure, there’s some beautiful cinematography, but it’s a double whammy: An orphaned child stranded at sea with a weak and starving tiger. I’m telling you, watching this movie is the worst idea in the world for anyone with a womb.
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