Together We Make A Family!
Family, A link to our past, A bridge to our future.
The Impact of Family In The Film
Throughout the film The Black Balloon, we observe many challenges that the family overcomes. Thomas is a 16 year old teenager that has trouble accepting his brother’s disabilities. After overcoming his brother's disability issue he then sees that no family is perfect. When Thomas meets a girl, Jackie, he feels different when he’s around his brother. Thomas at first hides Charlie because he feels embarrassed but when Jackie enters changes his perspective towards his brother. Thomas feels isolated when his mother shows more attention to Charlie, but that is not the case in Maggie’s view. Thomas becomes more opened, confident of who he is and becomes tolerant of his family.
Thomas wants his brother to be normal but as much as he knows that he cannot change the way Charlie is, he wants to find ways to overcome the challenges that he faces throughout the film. Thomas loves Charlie but he feels embarrassed when he is around him in local areas because of the humiliation he feels. Thomas at times doesn’t want anything to do with his brother. While Thomas is on the bus with Charlie and the other disabled children he realises what his brother goes through. He understands the concept of how hard it is to not be able to talk and having to use sign language all the time, but he never really could comprehend how complicated things were for them.
When Jackie appears at school wearing Charlie’s monkey ears, Thomas seems glad and not ashamed of Jackie. Jackie visits Thomas’s house so she can return the monkey ears. When Thomas sees Jackie he locks his brother in his room, so he doesn’t feel humiliated by his brother. When Maggie goes to check on Charlie she sees that he is rubbing his faeces in the carpet she yells for Thomas. When Thomas comes and sees what his brother has done he says with anger “He’s not my responsibility”. Maggie then exclaims “His your brother”. Thomas replies “He’s a freak”. Maggie is angry at what Thomas has said and then tells him “Charlie will never be normal, he will never get a job or have a family. He will be living with us for the rest of his life!” Maggie and Simon try to help Thomas understand that Charlie is the way he is and that he will be that way he for the rest of his life.
Simon from the beginning wished Charlie could be normal, but after a while he realised that Charlie was Charlie and nothing could change him. Simon tells Thomas that his mum always used to say that God sent them Charlie because they were capable and were strong to deal with him. Simon lets Thomas know, that all he knows is that “He is his own and you’re weak as piss if you can’t take care of your own.”
After a physical altercation between Thomas and Charlie on Thomas’s birthday, Thomas wakes up the next morning with regret and joins his brother in the back yard doing his morning activity while the neighbour is annoyed. When Thomas goes to school for the swimming program, the students see the bruises of what his brother has done to him. When the students see what has happened to Thomas they all of a sudden feel bad and regret saying what they said when they didn’t know what Thomas was going through. Thomas shows appreciation when he becomes wiser and takes into consideration of what is happening and he has to act like an adult to help his family out. Jackie tells Thomas that he should stop wishing that Charlie was normal which shows that she understands the way Charlie is and what the family is going through. Thomas then senses that he can have someone that he can talk to and to understand his emotions.
Jackie wearing Charlie's monkey ears
In this picture Jackie shows that Thomas shouldn't be embarrassed of his brother and it also shows that she understands Thomas and does not want to humiliate him.
Thomas expressing his emotions to Jackie
In this picture Thomas is letting out his emotions to Jackie to let her know of how he is feeling and what he wishes could happen.
Thomas and Jackie at the school pool
Thomas used to always wish that when he fell asleep that he would wake up in the morning and find his brother normal, when Thomas realises after his family and Jackie tell him that Charlie is the way he is and that he will stay the same for the rest of his life, he slowly overcomes his issues with his brother and understands what is accepted of him and what he can do to understand and cooperate with him. When Thomas, Maggie, Simon and Jackie go to see Charlie perform, all of a sudden Charlie’s friend doesn’t want to perform anymore and Charlie won’t do it by himself so Thomas wears the costume and performs with his brother. This shows that Thomas is not embarrassed of being with his brother in front of the public. When Charlie sees his brother Thomas at school and goes to say hi, the boys at school start to make Charlie their centre of humiliation. Thomas then tries to protect his brother. He tells the students to leave him alone and stop making fun of him. This shows that when it comes to the real deal Thomas is protective of his brother.
Simon, Maggie, Thomas and Charlie are a family with problems but down the path they learn how to overcome their problems.
What ever happens they will always love and help each other.
In this picture shows that no matter how children are and no matter what happens they always have each others back. This also represents that even if children can be annoying and some of the times parents what to get rid of them, parents will always love their children and protect them. Parents will always put their children before themselves.
Maggie showing acceptance of Charlie
This picture of Maggie showering her son Charlie, shows that even though she is pregnant and her son is disabled she still cooperates with him and treats him like he is normal because she as a mother accepts her children in any form they come in.
Thomas saying hi to Charlie
This Picture shows that Thomas has accepted his brother and is showing that he is not afraid of what other people think.
Throughout this film I realised that nothing can ever replace family and no matter how or what your family is like you will always love them. Family is the most precious thing anyone could ever have. The sooner people realise that they should do everything right for their family and to keep them pleased before the better it is before they lose them. I could see what Thomas was going through and how hard it may be for him to live a normal life with a disabled brother without getting teased by fellow peers that don’t understand what is happening. When Thomas always got told by people around him that Charlie is the way he is I could see the change in him and that he knew how to handle things even when people were mocking his brother and him. I could relate to Thomas of when he got teased by others because he has a disabled brother. The Black Balloon sets an example on showing how difficult things can get and the way people misjudge before they know anything about the matter to how they change after realising that they were misjudging incorrectly and should show respect. During the film Black Balloon, the family showed cooperation and improvement of how the family went from arguing and not knowing how to take responsibility to being able to help each other out and take into consideration their responsibility and to be aware of what’s expected of them.