I suspect not many will find this movie and its "hero" very familiar. But to people like myself, retired from academia, they are very close to home. Brad may not be an academic strictly speaking but his background and choice of vocation are very much like that of a professor or college administrator. He has had a fine education, remembers college with joy and nostalgia, has a loving wife who in the film is rather a nonentity, and a talented young son about to enter college. Clearly his relationship with his son has taken precedence over everything else -- except his disappointments with his achievements when compared to his college friends. He is definitely neurotic in a way very familiar on the academic scene. The only cure for his psychological woes is superficially the success of his son in getting into a first-rate university; but the real cure is his son's wise, even brilliant, explanation at the end that the only thing which should matter to Brad is not what others think of him, not even curiously what his wife thinks of him, but what his son Troy thinks of him. And what does Troy think of him? I will leave this to those who have yet to see the flick. Troy at his age of about 18 has more wisdom in his little finger than all the Ph.D.'s and successful people who plague his dad and give him the tremors. I cannot say I enjoyed the movie but I do say that it had a true spiritual message and a valuable one.
Review of Brad's Status
