The last year and a half has largely forced us – whether we wanted to or not – to confront what happens when our connection with others is largely cut off (or transformed to operate exclusively through electronic devices). The past couple of weeks, I stumbled across three films which each in their turn explore the connections we’ve lost and how they might be reclaimed. Each of these films is a gentle, achingly lovely examination of the human condition. They elegantly step into the ache and the longing that comes from feeling isolated (either by the death of a loved one or by a trauma or by the circumstances of a complicated life) and each one comes very highly recommended.

My Life as a Zucchini is the oldest film of this trio, released in 2016 to widespread acclaim and even nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Film. It is decisively mature for an animated film, dealing directly with the story of a boy who accidentally causes the death of his neglectful mother, who had become an alcoholic following his father’s abandonment of them. After being sent to an orphanage, he struggles to make authentic connections with his fellow orphans and is led on a journey to discover what family truly means. While the film certainly has a wistful energy to it, it never reaches an oppressively somber tone. As the boy – Icare – establishes relationships with new friends (including an orphan girl for whom he develops feelings), he comes to experience a belonging he’s never known and his journey redefines his understanding of family. The tragedy and trauma out of which he wanders leads him to recognize home not merely as a location to be established, but as relationships in which to feel and share love. It’s a beautifully unpretentious story that deserves to be seen by anyone feeling lost amidst personal upheaval.

Light from Light presents itself initially as a ghost story, but becomes a much richer tale about doubt and loss and the questions that hang between complicated people struggling to love each other. Sheila (Marin Ireland) is a mother and former paranormal investigator who is contacted to help Richard (Jim Gaffigan) resolve the mystery of unusual occurrences in his house which may or may not be the spirit of his deceased wife. The film’s deliberate restraint may test the patience of those seeking a spooky, haunted thriller, but this is not a film about what’s dead and gone: it’s a film about what lingers – of love, of faith, and of hope – after all that we depend on has been ripped away from us. The film’s eventual conclusions deserve to not be spoiled here, but I found the entire viewing experience to be an elegantly aching and tenderly honest exploration of how to sit with questions which may never find answers, particularly in the realm of relational connections which we constantly struggle – and continually fail – to understand. **Side note, I want to give a slow clap to my friend Dave who mentioned this film in the Fear of God Facebook Discussion Group, without which I may never have seen it**

Lastly we have the marvelous film Driveways. Driveways may always be mostly known as the final major film role of character actor Brian Dennehy, who died one month before it was released. But this gently lovely film about a woman and her son who – after the death of her sister – must bear the burden of cleaning out her home overflows with an understanding of the fragile threads which connect us all. Upon arriving at her sister’s home, Kathy (Hong Chau) discovers it overwrought with hoarded materials, and the task of clearing it away for sale suddenly becomes a significantly bigger challenge and time investment. As her effort progresses, she and her son Cody (Lucas Jaye) strike up a friendship with the retired veteran next door (Dennehy). This trio with vastly different situations, ages, and experiences find in one another a kinship of spirit they’d been unable to uncover elsewhere. What is so relentlessly powerful about this film is the way it establishes human connections not by situational commonalities, but by the ability to see another person – someone utterly unlike you – and to bid them welcome with all of their uncertainty and baggage. The film’s final moments, so unassuming and subdued, brought me to nearly endless tears, not because of narrative manipulation or sensationalized cinematic tricks, but because it so effortlessly displays the simple human capacity to befriend another person without any pretense or condition.

These three films are each brief (ranging from 70-80 minutes each), understated, and endlessly graceful. Unlike films which depend on trivial sentiment to coerce emotional responses from the audience, these films confidently present the quiet strength of fragile and wounded hearts, finding dignity and hope in the unheralded power of a shared moment of understanding. They are antidotes to isolation; echoes of what’s possible when we find the courage to extend our hand to one another without obligation or demand. Each of them in their way felt like cool water to a parched spirit and if you find yourself craving such a balm, please give any or all of these films a viewing.