Adulthood means freedom. Or so I thought it was. You control what you want to do with your own lives with no intervention from others. The choices are yours alone, and the boundaries you draw shall be respected from whomever you want.
Writing about the drama to ease my guilty conscience
With regret, I have just completed a binge marathon on Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House, in only 3 days. I am terribly ashamed of this impressive feat and wallow in disgust for putting off my priorities while practically being molded on my laptop for the past sitting.
The Haunting of Hill House is an American horror drama, which involves a family (The Crains) being entangled with their past —The haunted house— and how they reluctantly put their differences aside and resolve the chain of mysterious events happening to them, once and for all.
Save for the spooky scenes, I think that the drama was more than that. I liked that the producers decide to focus on the relationships, unraveling through flashback episodes which bring depth and clarity until the end of the season.
I felt that the biggest tragedy for the family are how their lives are ruptured, which has little to do about the ghosts, but thanks to the lack of communication within the family.
Family conversations can be hard
Communication among family members can be a very intricate thing and I shared their views on that.
Perhaps, it is the assumption that we know our parents and siblings well since we lived together for the formative years of our lives. We forgot that the roles tend to stay, but we often forget that characters change.
When we get old in life, we often think that respecting one’s boundary is to steer clear off personal matters.
We think that by doing so, we are being polite to our folks and not being branded as Mr. Nosey. We ended up going for casual, shallow conversations and not really treading into the stuff that matters.
Laying the bricks
But what we are also doing without realizing is that we start to place “green zones”. Safe zones that one day, turns into barriers that can never be crossed.
The drama presents the characters in a seemingly prejudiced view towards one another. Tormented with their own struggles in life, the Crains appear to mind their own business and slowly accepted the fact that their family is dysfunctional.
Until the death of their youngest sibling, Nelly.
“Ignorance and isolation are like bricks and mortar. Given enough time, walls are erected and are unfortunately, hard to break.”
Unite, we fight our demons
The house, according to my interpretation is a kind of a self- fulfilling prophetic abode for the mother, who thought that by keeping her kids within its confines, shall be protected from the outside world free from the bad folks ready to pounce on them at every turn and opportunity.
[Spoiler Alert]
The final episode shows the family is reunited in the red room and here, the mother reluctantly accepted that the lives of the kids must go on.
“It is about wishing for the best to our loved ones and to support one another in life.”
The story drives home a strong message about family ties and how we should accept our siblings’ strength and setbacks, regardless of the outcome. It is about wishing for the best to our loved ones and to support one another in life (and in death, for the Crains).
And I think that this is a good ending. At least, it justifies my guilt.
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