The Pathway: The Typical Coming-Of-Age Story

...THE HARDER THEY FALL is the typical coming-of-age story along the lines of SECONDHAND LIONS but without the humor and with an international twist. It follows the widowed Wayne, a doctor who has become so caught up in work and the loss of his wife thirteen years earlier that he has begun to fail as a far to his angsty preteen, mixed race son Jabari. Jabari is sent to live with his grandparents in Jamaica to both learn about his heritage and to gain respect while his father has time to focus on working out his issues on his own.

The unseen mother’s sudden death at the beginning of the film is an overused device and one almost wishes that the father had died instead. The father and son are unlikable and their problems seem relatively trivial. Jabari wants to be angry at the world even though everyone around him wants to help him out in typical preteen fashion, but it isn’t clear what beyond not having dated since his wife’s death is Wayne problem. Although there is a visualization of the Jabari’s and Wayne’s relationship falling apart over the years, it doesn’t really make sense timeline wise. Jabari was never old enough to know his mother and it seems unlikely that this would be what would alienate the two thirteen years after the fact.

He is reticent, slow to help out his grandfather on the field, and refuses to drink the tea which keeps the mosquitos at bay even though they cause him discomfort. One almost hopes that he will become deservedly sick from the mosquitos and have a change of heart. Instead the change of heart comes when his crush Umani finally convince him to drink the tea and he comically realizes that he actually likes the taste. Soon he begins to understand the importance of the tasks that his grandfather has given him and appreciate the beauty of