Daily Dialogue — February 6, 2016

Stan: So, Gilly, big baseball fan?
Young Gil Buckman: Kind of.
Stan: Dad bring you here a lot?
Young Gil Buckman: Once a year on my birthday. Then he pays an usher to watch me.
Stan: Oh, I see.
Young Gil Buckman: You have to understand, my father in his own childhood… was without a positive male influence.
Stan: Huh?
Young Gil Buckman: His own father kicked him out when he was fifteen. So my dad was taught to see child raising as a burden — a prison rather than a playground. You understand what I´m saying?
Stan: You don’t talk like a kid.
Young Gil Buckman: Yeah, well I’m not really a kid.
Stan: You’re not a duck.
Young Gil Buckman: This is a memory of when I was a kid. I’m 35 now. I have kids of my own. You don’t even really exist. You’re an amalgam.
Stan: A what?
Young Gil Buckman: A combination of several ushers my dad left me with over the years. I combined them into one memory.
Stan: Why?
Young Gil Buckman: This was a great symbolic moment of my life. My father dumping me with you… it’s why I swore things would be different with my kids. It’s my dream. Strong, happy, confident kids.
Stan: That’s great, that’s great. You know, you — you got a lovely family, and I’m a god-damn amalgam!

— Parenthood (1989), written by Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel, story by Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel & Ron Howard

The Daily Dialogue theme for the week: Abandoned, recommended by by ymep1.

Trivia: This movie is based on Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Lowell Ganz, and Babaloo Mandel’s experiences as parents.

Dialogue On Dialogue: I love this scene, a terrific opening, and a great, entertaining way to lay out one of the central conflicts in the story — Gil’s longtime sense that his father has ‘abandoned’ him in favor of his younger brother.