What happens when a father allows his son to drop out of school as long as he watches three movies a week?  This memoir draws a reader in with this question and lets them find their own answers.

Gilmour’s writing is lovely and thick with emotion at times for a son who has faced the divorce of one set of parents and a remarriage.  Jesse is 16 at the beginning of the story and plagued with an inability to care about school.  His father, seeking a way to alleviate the son’s obvious misery, gives him the choice to drop out and learn movies from dad, or try to bore himself to death in school.  The decision is an obvious one.

The best bits in this book are the coming of age stories seen through the lens of some classic movies.  David Gilmour has written and continues to write movie reviews and is an obvious connoisseur of the big screen.  Learning from him is learning from a master. 

Sometimes the honesty in the relationship between father and son is difficult to read through.  It’s easy to see oneself in the lack of communication, the trials of young women who break a teenager’s heart, the drugs, the alcohol, and the pain inflicted on all parties.

This book is one that I was glad to have read and would recommend to anyone.  It’s strength lies in its ruthless devotion to the fact of a relationship and the author’s ability to demonstrate the tie-ins between what the characters are seeing on the big screen and filtering through into their own lives.  Give this one a read!



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