Yesterday afternoon I went to see the newly released (here, at least) film Miss Potter. For those of you who have not seen it, it is a lovely film! I highly recommend that you see it. The scenery of the English countryside is wonderful, the locations are great! It has a number of moments in it that I found myself clapping and cheering! There were a number of moments that made me laugh out loud.
There were also, unfortunately, a number of moments that made me glare over the back of my chair at the little girl repeatedly kicking the back of my chair! There were five of them to be exact.
The little girl, wearing her mud boots, was kicking my chair with enough force to make the impact audible to a person two seats away who kept looking at me every time the noise started. The first few times I stared at the little girl and then looked down at her boots which she was kicking my chair with. The woman next to her, her mother I was later to learn, looked at me apologetically each time I looked back but said nothing.
The fifth time this happened, I turned and said "Excuse me, would mind not kicking the back of my chair please?"
This time, the mother finally took action. The kicking stopped and I was able to enjoy the last half-hour of the movie uninterrupted. At the conclusion of the movie, as I was gathering my trash and getting my jacket on, the little girl's mother leaned over the road to me and said rather tartly "You had no reason to speak to my daughter. She certainly didn't deserve to be spoken in that manner by you! Had I known that it bothered you, I would have told her to stop. You owe her an apology."
"Yeah! Whatever!" or words to that affect was the only response I offered!
The very idea! Do parents not feel that it is their job to control their children over here? Is this a universal problem? It has, after all, been quite a while since I have been to a movie theatre. Perhaps this is the norm. I am supposed to sit and allow the little girl behind me spoil the movie… I think not! The mother is as much to blame as the little girl. More so! "If she had known it bothered me… I almost told the wench to buy me a ticket to her next movie and I'd sit behind her kicking her chair. If she had known? If she had known? What a transparent way of trying to shift blame for her brat's misbehavior to my failure to point it out to her! The very idea!
I hope that wherever you are today, you'll have the chance to see this film, it is excellent! I hope also you have the chance to see it in an environment conducive to enjoying it!
Don Bergquist - 21 January 2007 - Thames Ditton, Surrey, UK
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