MSNBC's "10 Best Movie Scenes of 2005"

This year men got emotional.

By Erik Lundegaard
MSNBC contributor
Dec. 27, 2005

Thumbsucker
6. Father and son
Vincent D’Onofrio reminds us to embrace the everyday in “Thumbsucker.”
Three of the most-overlooked movies of the year (“Jarhead,” “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “Thumbsucker”) work within well-established formulas (war, noir, coming-of-age), but go in unexpected directions. Here, high schooler Justin Cobb isn’t concentrating in class. Ritalin is suggested and you think the boy will balk. No. He wants to take it; he wants to be someone other than he is. Who doesn’t? Adventures and misadventures follow. He’s estranged from his dad in an ordinary way. Mike Cobb (Vincent D’Onofrio) probably sees in his thumbsucking son someone he didn’t expect or want, while Justin (Lou Taylor Pucci) probably sees in his father — a grocery store manager** — someone he doesn’t want to be. But near the end of the film, in the father’s office, as the boy is getting ready for college, they connect a little. The connection is mostly in looks and pauses and things unsaid. Then the father says, “I was just getting used to you.” It’s a beautiful, bittersweet line that goes beyond fathers and sons. It encourages us to embrace the everyday because the everyday always goes.

** this is incorrect- Cobb manages a sporting goods store.

:: Thank you to Judy Pilgrim.