Perhaps you’ve heard the saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Nowadays, you’re lucky to have both parents sharing the responsibility, especially since having an absentee parent seems to be more the norm than the exception.
Certainly, that’s what Hollywood seems to think as the challenge of raising a child or a family on your own appears to be a popular plot staple. Here are ten movies about single parents that you won’t likely forget.
1. Panic Room (2002)
Jodie Foster is Meg Altman, a recently divorced lady who with her daughter, Sarah (a pre-Twilight, non-sparkly Kristen Stewart) acquires a four story brownstone in NYC.
The previous owner was a paranoid millionaire who installed a special safe room complete with a steel door, concrete walls and cameras everywhere. All the better to see Forest Whitaker and Jared Leto breaking in one night, all armed to the teeth and looking for a mother lode secret stash.
Mother-daughter bonding was never this scary – go to the bathroom before and after you watch this. Your bladder will thank you for it.
Stars: Jodie Foster, Kristen Stewart, Forest Whitaker, Jared Leto
Memorable Quote:
Burnham: “Nice house you guys got. Mom's rich?”
Sarah: “Dad's rich. Mom's just mad.”
2. Spanglish (2004)
Adam Sandler and Tea Leoni play John and Deborah Clasky, a wealthy, but fairly feckless couple. Paz Vega enters their lives as Flor Moreno, a hard-up Mexican single mother who barely speaks English. Aided by the help of her daughter, Cristina (Shelbie Bruce), she picks up the language and the two pick up aspects of the fast life of the Claskies (for good and ill) while struggling to maintain their own identities. You’ll be astounded as Sandler musters Herculean self-control by not uttering a single fart joke.
Stars: Adam Sandler, Tea Leoni, Paz Vega, Cloris Leachman
Memorable Quote:
Narrator: “I've been overwhelmed by your encouragement to apply to your university and your list of scholarships available to me. Though, as I hope this essay shows, your acceptance, while it would thrill me, will not define me. My identity rests firmly and happily on one fact: I am my mother's daughter. Thank you, Cristina Moreno!”
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3. My Girl (1991)
What do you do when you’re a neurotic hypochondriac drama queen preteen with an undertaker for a father and a funeral parlor for a home?
Such is the conundrum that is My Girl, a coming-of-age tale about Vada Sultenfuss, who, in addition to the aforementioned emotional morass, must also come to terms with her dearly departed mother, her Alzheimer’s-stricken grandmother, and the new woman in dear ole’ dad’s life (saucily played by Jamie Lee Curtis).
Stars: Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Macaulay Culkin, Anna Chlumsky
Memorable Quote:
Vada Sultenfuss: “I was born jaundiced. Once I sat on a toilet seat at a truck stop and caught hemorrhoids. And I've learned to live with this chicken bone that's been lodged in my throat for the past three years. So I knew Dad would be devastated when he learned of my latest affliction.
Dad, I don't want to upset you, but my left breast is developing at a significantly faster rate than my right. It can only mean one thing: cancer. I'm dying.”
Harry: [making a sandwich] “Okay, sweetie, hand me the mayonnaise out of the fridge.”
4. My Neighbor Totoro (1988)
Not all single parent situations are permanent or the result of ‘irreconcilable differences’ (as courtrooms are wont to say). Mei and Satsuki are children being raised by their gentle, professorial father, while their ailing mother convalesces in a hospital from an undisclosed (but possibly serious) illness. The trio moves into a country home that happens to be next to the abode of powerful, whimsical and cuddly nature spirits called Totoros. What comes next is unabashedly, utterly wonderful…
Stars: Chevy Chase, Dakota Fanning, Elle Fanning, Tim Daly
Memorable Quote:
Satsuki: "That's what they said the last time, too. ‘It'll be a little visit. Just a few days to see what's wrong with her. It's just a cold.’ What are me and Mei going to do if Mommy dies?"
Granny: "Uh…"
Satsuki: "What are we going to do, Nanny?"
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5. Road to Perdition (2002)
Based on a graphic novel by Max Allan Collins, this gritty noir pic is about a Depression-Era mob enforcer and his son as they engage in an epic running battle against assassins. Marked for death by a psychotic on-the-edge capo (uncharacteristically given life by a pre-Bond Daniel Craig), the pair elude death and darkness while coming to terms with their losses, their father-son relationship, and the principles they stand by as events come to their inexorable conclusion. And it has Tom Hanks as an action star.
Stars: Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jude Law, Daniel Craig, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Memorable Quote:
Michael Sullivan, Jr.: “I saw then that my father's only fear was that his son would follow the same road. And that was the last time I ever held a gun. People always thought I grew up on a farm. And I guess, in a way, I did. But I lived a lifetime before that, in those six weeks on the road in the winter of 1931. When people ask me if Michael Sullivan was a good man, or if there was just no good in him at all, I always give the same answer. I just tell them... he was my father.”
6. Three Fugitives (1989)
This understatedly goofy romp begins with an ex-convict named Lucas (a pre-mugshot Nick Nolte) who, in spite of deciding to finally walk the straight and narrow, ends up the hostage of bumbling bank robber Ned Perry (played by a disarmingly gut-busting Martin Short). When Lucas learns that Ned has turned to a life of crime to save his charming and fragile daughter, Meg, from child services, he reluctantly decides to be a willing accomplice. Hi-jinx, mistaken identities and chaos ensue as the law (played by Darth Vader) assumes seasoned bank robber Lucas is calling the shots.
Stars: Nick Nolte, Martin Short, James Earl Jones, Sarah Rowland Doroff
Memorable Quote:
Ned Perry: “If fate had been a little kinder to me I would still be working, leading a normal life. Instead I am married to a convict and I have a daughter named Jonathan.”
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7. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
The epitome of the dysfunctional family, the Tenenbaums are lead by their overbearing shyster patriarch, Royal, who railroads his children to greatness, at dire cost to their sanity. Decades later, Royal hatches a scheme to prevent his estranged wife from marrying another man by pretending to be dying of cancer. Tempers and passions run high and skeletons come diving headfirst out of closets in this dark comedy of a drama. The Addams Family and the Manson family have got nothing on these guys.
Stars: Gene Hackman, Anjelica Huston, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, Owen Wilson, Bill Murray
Memorable Quote:
Royal: “Let me get to the point, the three of you and your mother are all I've got and I love you more than anything.”
[Chas scoffs and mock laughs]
Royal: “Chas, let me finish here. I've got six weeks to set things right with you and I aim to do it. Will you give me a chance?”
Chas: “No.”
8. The Karate Kid (2010)
A remake of the Ralph Macchio/Pat Morita classic, this inappropriately named (everyone uses kung fu, not karate) but rollickingly lively flick offers a fresh perspective of the sensei-student relationship amidst the backdrop of a coming-of-age story.
Jaden Smith is Dre Parker, whose life is turned upside-down when his mother chooses to uproot them both from Detroit to live in Beijing. Like Macchio’s Daniel LaRusso, Dre finds himself picked on by bullies until the maintenance man Mr. Han (Jackie Chan channeling a cross between Mr. Miyagi and his Drunken Master master) comes to his rescue and ultimately, his salvation, as Dre learns kung fu, harmony, self-respect and ultimately goes on to kick the living beejezus outta the bad guys.
Stars: Jackie Chan, Jaden Smith
Memorable Quote:
Mr. Han: “Just tell me, Xiao Dre, why? Why do you need to go back out there so badly?”
Dre Parker: “Because I'm still scared. And no matter what happens, tonight, when I leave, I don't want to be scared anymore.”
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9. The Parent Trap (1998)
This Disney adaptation of The Corsican Brothers places Lindsay Lohan as Hallie Parker and Annie James, identical twins separated by their parents who decided to divorce shortly after their birth. Neither child knows of the other’s existence until one fateful day when both girls are accidentally enrolled in the same summer camp. The twins eventually discover their origins and plot to hopefully reunite their parents and end up as one big happy family. Truly a fantastic tale as everyone knows that’s about as likely to happen as snowfall in Quiapo.
Stars: Lindsay Lohan, Dennis Quaid, Natasha Richardson
Memorable Quote:
Annie: “Don't you realize what's happening? Oh man, this is beyond coincidence, this is beyond imagination! I only have a mother, and you only have a father... You've never seen your Mom, and I've never seen my Dad. You have one old picture of your Mom, I have one old picture of my Dad but at least yours is probably a whole picture.”
10. I Am Sam (2001)
Sam Dawson is a simple man with a simple mind, one impaired by a developmental disability. He is also gifted with a daughter, a lovely little lass named Lucy, who despite being abandoned by her mother is a precocious and intelligent child.
As time wears on, it becomes clear that she surpasses her father’s own intellect, a fact that becomes clear to the American social welfare system, which decides to place Lucy in a foster home. Sam enlists the aid of a seemingly brusque and calculating lawyer named Rita Harrison, and in doing so, opens up both their lives to awakenings, change and Oscar nominations.
Stars: Sean Penn, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diane Wiest, Laura Dern, Dakota Fanning
Memorable Quote:
Lucy: “Daddy, did God made for you to be like this or was it an accident?”Sam: “Okay, what do you mean?”
Lucy: “I mean you're different.”
Sam: “But what do you mean?”Lucy: “You're not like other daddies.”
Sam: “I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Yeah, I'm sorry.”
Lucy: “It's okay, daddy. It's okay. Don't be sorry. I'm lucky. Nobody else's daddy ever comes to the park.”
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