Review of The Land of Steady Habits

It is a really successful film. I liked it. It shows a middle-aged man who, after years of being the "perfect" society role model/suburban father, decides he wants to be HAPPY. Whatever that means... He finds himself without joy in the middle of his life, going to a job he doesn't like, paying for a house, raising a family. Pretty much everything you'd expect from a man his age in that town. The story has an existential tone, which he perfectly explains in a metaphor about a web: you make connections with everyone around you and I thought that the more you made, the more important you are and the more you will be remembered. But in reality, you disappear, and the people you connected with, only make new conexions... You go from "role model citizen" to a disappointing person in the blink of an eye.

I think that by chance, the protagonist in his egoism, trying to find happiness far from what society expects of him, finds that his true happiness is what he walked away from: his family, his son, his life and only by moving away... He realizes.

These social misfits, like the main character, his son, Charlie, live their lives differently and are ostracized as disappointing members of the town. I think the film is about a new take on that kind of prejudice. Just as the story of Laica, who died without even knowing the "greater purpose" she was serving, simply living and dying for the "greater cause" of society.

Definitely recommended.