Fatherhood, 2021

November 17, 2022 | JUAN GONZALEZ

Fatherhood is a movie starring Kevin Hart who plays Matt, a newly widowed father, whose wife recently passed away shortly after the birth of their daughter. He is determined to raise his daughter despite the odds against him. The movie starts out with Matt’s wife, Liz’s funeral, and Matt about to prepare to speak in front of the guests. The movie then flashbacks to a doctor's visit right before their baby, Maddy is born. It flashes to Liz and Matt being in the hospital waiting for the arrival of their baby. Matt is then back at his house with all his guests after the funeral and struggling to keep his composure in front of his friends and guests. We are then back at the hospital and Liz is giving birth to their daughter, everything goes well with the procedure, and we see Liz’s parents, Mike and Marion visit them in the hospital. Shortly after, Liz tries to stand up to go see Maddy and as the nurse and Matt are helping her stand, she struggles to breathe, and they put her back into bed. The nurse calls for the doctors, but it is too late, Liz has passed away and Matt is left a single parent. Matt then leaves the hospital with Liz’s parents and goes back to his house.

His mom and Marion both believe he is not capable of raising Maddy alone. His mom, Marion, and Mike (Marion’s husband) are staying with Matt for a few weeks to help him with Maddy. The first few nights Marion judges and criticizes Matt for his parenting ability and suggest he gives Maddy to her and his mom and that she is raised in Minnesota with family. Mike tries his best to give Matt parenting advice since Matt will not let Maddy go with his mom and in-laws.

Shortly after, Matt goes back to work and tries to convince his boss to let him work from home, and when he needs to come to work, he would need to bring his daughter with him. Back at home his friend, Jordan, tries his best to console Matt and support him on his solo parenting journey. Jordan and Matt try to build Maddy’s crib, but Matt is very impatient and easily starts disagreeing with Jordan when building the crib. Another example of his impatient habits is when his mom and he go out for a walk with Maddy, Matt aggressively fails to fold the stroller and throws it to the ground, when his mom is able to fold it without a problem Matt becomes jealous of his mother.

When his mom and in-laws leave Boston, Matt is incredibly happy he has the house to himself again and his friends come over often to help him with Maddy. Matt is doing well as a single parent, able to take care of his daughter at home, the grocery store, and anywhere else he goes. When Maddy does not stop crying one day Matt reaches out for help at a new parent support group. One of the mothers at the new support group tells him to try white noise and it stops Maddy from crying.

Next, we see Matt at work giving a presentation when suddenly, he hears a baby crying, he runs out of his presentation and tries to stop Maddy from crying. All the people in the presentation follow and surprisingly try to help Matt to calm Maddy down. One of them even thought it was a memorable experience afterward when Maddy was brought into the presentation room with them. Matt hires a babysitter for the first time and decides to go out with Jordan but does not really like his experience, so he decides to go home. He is even more irritated when Jordan is about to mention his dead wife, Liz. Marion comes to visit Matt again and reminds Matt about their pediatrician appointment. They go to the pediatrician appointment and find out Maddy is doing well and is a healthy baby. Marion reminds Matt to bring Maddy to Minnesota in three weeks to have the priest christen her. While in Minnesota Matt visits Liz’s childhood bedroom a lot and looks at her old photos.

We time skip to Maddy being a few years older now, around 6 or 7. Maddy is going to the school her mom wanted her to go to and she is still being raised by Matt and his two friends Oscar and Jordan. Oscar invites Matt to his son’s birthday party where he tries to set them up with a girl named Liz also known as Lizzie, the same name as his deceased wife, but aside from that Matt and Lizzie seem to get along at the birthday party. A few days pass and Matt tries to explain to Maddy that he is going out but not with his friends but with a woman, Lizzie. He then gives Maddy a necklace out of her mom’s jewelry box and Maddy asks if her mom is in it. He says yes that her mom is in her, in him, and anybody else’s lives she touched. He then goes out on a date with Lizzie, and they have a fun time at dinner. And then another date with Lizzie happens while Maddy is at her soccer game and Oscar and his wife, Rose, go watch Maddy at her game.

Maddy and her father’s relationship continues to grow stronger as time passes and even as he continues to spend more time with Lizzie. Matt and Maddy go to an amusement park together and afterward Maddy meets Lizzie. Lizzie and Maddy seem to get along and Matt brings Lizzie over to draw on the walls with Maddy. At school, Maddy gets into an argument with a boy for wearing boy underwear and she jumps off the playground to attack him, but she lands flat on the woodchips. Maddy is then sent to the hospital and the school tries to contact Matt. Matt does not have his phone with him while he is spending time with Lizzie, and when he finally does see his missed phone calls from the school he rushes to the hospital. Luckily, Maddy’s injuries are minor and only needs a few stitches to the forehead.

Lizzie comes visit Matt and Maddy at his house but Matt refuses to let her see Maddy and breaks up with her. He blames himself for not being at the hospital sooner and spending time with Lizzie instead. Matt brings Maddy back to Minnesota and Maddy tells him she wants to stay with her grandma and grandpa. He decides to leave Maddy in Minnesota and go back to Boston. Back at home Matt gets a promotion and has a trip to Croatia and London planned for the following months. He gets to see his friends and they all realize they miss Maddy, but Matt has a tough time expressing it. As he is waiting for his flight to Croatia he backs down and goes back to Minnesota to be with his daughter. He brings Maddy back to Boston because he realizes that is who he wants to be with and Maddy wants to be with him just as much. He even brings her the necklace she lost that belonged to her mother when he went to pick her up in Minnesota. Once in Boston, Maddy and Matt have one final goal to go visit Lizzie and win her back. Matt brings her flowers and apologizes to Lizzie, Maddy, Lizzie and Matt then all go out to eat ice cream.

Care Ethics is contextualizing and supporting the well-being of caregiver/receivers in a number of different social relations. For example, if your friend got their heart recently broken the right way to respond in an ethics of care approach would be to give them a hug or let them have a shoulder to lean on. This film is full of examples of care ethics. The film starts out by us learning about a loving couple about to have a baby. The husband, Matt, often kisses his wife, Liz, a show of affection and care for his beloved. Even as she is giving birth Matt is there holding her hand and kissing her forehead. Sadly, this changed when Liz loses her life and Matt is left a single parent with his newborn daughter Maddy. Lucky for Maddy, Matt did not plan on just giving up on his life or hers after his wife died, he was determined to care for and raise Maddy as a single dad. And he did for so many years. He took her to school and when he tucked her into bed at night, he gave her two kisses one from him and one from her mom, yet another fitting example of care ethics, because not only is he giving Maddy a kiss from him he is also trying his best to be the mom Maddy does not have. This is even more of a care ethics trait because the mom is the more nurtured, emotional, and loving parent to a child and to see Matt understand this and try to fill this role truly shows that he cares for his daughter. There are times when Matt and Maddy are out and he holds her hand or gives her a high five, and most importantly he hugs Maddy and tells her he loves her which might be the most important action because you can tell someone you love them but it’s even more important to show the actions to back it up.

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