MELVIN AND HOWARD (1980). Every time I'd try to watch this film, I couldn't get past one scene: blue-collar, goodhearted Melvin (Paul Le Mat) comes into money via his wife Linda (Mary Steenburgen)'s good fortune. He immediately blows the money on a boat & Cadillac. Instant stop.

It just hit too close to home. My dad was the head custodian at my elementary school and as a point of pride made sure he always had a nicer, newer vehicle than the principal. Le Mat's character would so aggravate me in this scene that I couldn't stand to watch the film.

Probably the biggest fight we had was after he got hurt on the job & got a decent settlement. All through school, the promise was that if I made the honor roll in high school, he'd pay for my college. No one in my family had gone to college.

Shortly after his settlement, I graduated high school on the honor roll. We were living in a trailer park. He decided to spend the money on a new motorhome and a classic pickup instead. So I started working at a pickle factory & paid my way thru community college.

Soon, my parents moved out of state & I lived in that motorhome, parked in my great aunt's driveway, paying my way through school. I told myself I was on my own, financially, emotionally, spiritually, etc. I don't think our dynamic really recovered.

Eventually, while I was in an MFA program for creative writing, I'd send home money from my teaching stipend to try to help make payments on that motorhome, but it was eventually repossessed. I turned further away, becoming a bit selfish out of (I told myself) necessity.

Anyway, every time I'd try to watch this film, where goodhearted but hopeless unpractical Paul Le Mat would make another doomed decision, it was just too much. But a strange thing has happened for me this year since my dad has passed away. I've eased on some of my many defenses.

I'm finding it a bit easier to now regard him not as a series of flaws I have to defend myself against, but rather as the man who introduced me to westerns, crime films, country music, pro wrestling. That is, as the guy who introduced me to all the things that would sustain me.

And so now a few months after he's passed, I gave MELVIN AND HOWARD another try. And in that same scene where he pulls up with the Cadillac and stupid boat, I gave out a verbal "oh no." But I hung with the film. And I'm so glad I did.

Because Jonathan Demme never makes excuses for Melvin's terrible decisions, nor does he pretend that he's anything other than what he is. But he doesn't use Melvin's flaws as an excuse for ignoring his capacity for generosity, or his love of life, or his essential innocence.

MELVIN AND HOWARD is such a humanistic, warm, understanding, accepting film. Now that I finally finished it, I love it deeply. I also aspire to become more like it, while I still can.

Also, finally, I kinda totally fell in love with Pamela Reed's character in the film. Kind of my no-nonsense version of a dreamboat. Total keeper.