What I Watched -- The Fundamentals of Caring and Cake

It just so happened that S and I watched, on two consecutive nights, two movies about people who had lost children.

First up was The Fundamentals of Caring.  Ben (Paul Rudd, whom I have adored ever since Clueless) drags himself out of unemployment (and away from his impending divorce) by getting a job as a caregiver.  Much to his surprise, his first assignment is not to an elderly person, but to Trevor (Craig Roberts), an ex-pat British teenager with muscular dystrophy.

Both Ben and Trevor have major emotional challenges to overcome.  Together, and with the help of some unexpected companions, they dive in together.

Cake had a bit of a different flavor, though some similar psychological issues.  Where Fundamentals was about the ability of others to help us get over our stumbling blocks, Cake was much more heavily focused on the trauma caused by getting stuck behind those stumbling blocks, and not being able to get past them.  Jennifer Aniston plays Claire, who becomes weirdly obsessed with the suicide of an acquaintance.  Delving into the other woman's troubled history forces her to face her own.

Bottom line: same, same...but different.  The former is definitely the pick if you want something uplifting; the latter if you want to wonder if there is any meaning in the world for a few hours.