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Film Review: A Man Called Otto

by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD

    It’s a given: Social workers face horrific days with our clients when we know better than to respond to the well-intended question, “How was your day?”  For if we try, we may well be asked, “How can you spend your days like this? Why do you do this?”   

     My advice for these days: Go home; respond to only what is necessary; take a long, hot bath (whenever possible, pick a home with a tub, a highly undervalued retreat); and then visit Tom Hanks and company in his 2022 dramedy, A Man Called Otto.

     Hanks has openly shared that his wife Rita Wilson and her family taught him to love—a primary theme of Otto—and the Hanks family is heavily invested in an uplifting and heartening escape from familial and societal cruelty. Hanks and Wilson are two of the film’s producers. The soundtrack album features the single “Til You're Home,” written by Wilson and David Hodges and performed by Wilson and Sebastián Yatra. Hanks’ son Truman plays Otto as a young man, dearly and convincingly.   

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Ten Angry Women Change Their World: Review of “Women Talking”

Based on a true story, Sarah Polley brings to life the prolonged traumas of women and their daughters in an isolated setting.

by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD

 Content warning: Rape/Violence

     If you tuned in to the 95th Academy Awards ceremony on March 12, 2023, amidst many compelling changes, updates, and recognitions, you may know of one “smack in the face” category exclusion. Although Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, which she both wrote and directed, was nominated for Best Picture, Polley (and all women!) were excluded this year from consideration in the highly coveted director category. In a recent interview with Variety, this striking omission led Patty Jenkins, who directed Wonder Woman and Monster, to offer a sarcastic sentence, not meant to be taken literally: “I give up!”

     Polley did, however, receive an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. In accepting her Oscar, she attacked the sexism that social workers validate hourly as again and again we see women (including ourselves) condescended to, demeaned as lacking intelligence, viewed as “less than,” and sexually objectified. “First of all, I just want to thank the Academy for not being mortally offended by the words ‘women’ and ‘talking’ put so close together like that.” 

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The Social Work Relationship: A Transformational Gift

Dear friends and colleagues,
March is Social Worker’s month. Few realize all the historic profession of social work has contributed to the mental health field. I hope you find my tribute meaningful.

by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD

Social work is the first profession to identify the practitioner’s relationship with our clients and its essential components as the key vehicle that leads to hope, awareness, change—and in many noted cases, transformation. The relationship is devoid of superiority and condescension. Clients are not viewed as sick or “less than,” “in treatment with” a healthy paragon of knowledge and virtue. Social workers deeply believe that each client is capable of finding meaning, fulfillment, and integration of the importance of self and mutual respect…

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Film Review—White Noise: A Wake-Up Examination of Lethal Internal and External Challenges

Though it is tedious, taking the time to see this prescient film questioning the so called “best and brightest"  will be worth your while.

by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD

    The 2022 film White Noise, written and directed by Noah Baumbach, is billed as a comedy-drama. But make no mistake: Baumbach’s achievement is a timely, deadly serious, and I believe brilliant depiction of life—one where Baumbach digs out closely guarded intimate fears and denied external realities. Like life itself, the film moves so quickly at certain points that the viewer feels breathless. At other times, it seems to drag interminably. 

     Yes, there are some scenes that produce smiles (not primarily because they are funny, but because they hit home). There are giggle-chuckles that are due to “absurdities’—steroid manifestations—of life truths. They are the blown up, exaggerated mirror images of struggles we know well about our family and friends, our clients, our world, ourselves. This film illuminates a social worker’s challenge: Until we face ourselves and what complex societal challenges ask of us, we cannot understand our clients. We will be unable to hear what they are trying to tell us. 

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