In 1982 I was twelve years old. And I was completely obsessed with the movie E.T.
Obsessed, as in see it eleven times in the theater and collect mountains of useless trading cards based on the film. I vaguely recall fretting over weekly box office returns as well, not because the movie wasn’t making ludicrous bank, but rather because in my mind it was absolutely vital that E.T. make more money than any movie ever made in the history of all moviedom, thereby securing its rightful place in the filmic pantheon as The Officially Confirmed Best Movie EVAR.
It’s funny, because nowadays I suppose twelve years old is bordering on the maturity of teenagedom, an age where kids are already putting away childish things and growing ever more concerned with seasoned pastimes, like honing advanced coolness, developing an interest in real estate, and following the stock market — miming levels of maturity I couldn’t even conceive of at that age. No, I was a decidedly very young twelve. I was a barely-into-the-1980s version of twelve. Madonna hadn’t even happened yet, for crissakes.
So yesterday I sat down to screen E.T. on DVD with M — her first time seeing it and easily my twentieth, though it had been at least ten years since my last viewing. And as we watched together I felt my insides involuntarily transforming, melting back to that pre-Material Girl state as some raw, pre-teen version of myself floated up from my time-worn jaded depths, eager to embrace what I now know as a slightly hokey Spielbergian weepfest.
I could never articulate as a twelve year old what it was about the movie that had hooked my insides so, but yesterday I think I finally understood it. At age twelve, I’d longed for the kind of connection the little boy Elliot seemed to have with E.T., a connection beyond friendship, a love almost spiritual in its purity. In the movie, Elliot actually feels the alien’s feelings — his exhaustion, his fear, his joy — and even their physical bodies and organ systems are somehow entwined, tied together by some invisible thread or umbilicus. It’s never completely explained how this happens or how their connection works — it just is. But I wanted that. I wanted an all-encompassing love to connect me and another person, a love that couldn’t be broken by space or time or creepy government agents in Moon Men Suits. Even Peter Coyote and his jangly keys couldn’t come between us, I was sure of it.
Near the end of the film, when E.T. is preparing to jump on his space ship and high-tail it back to Alienville, there’s a moving moment wherein the alien touches the weeping Elliot’s chest and says in his sweet old lady voice, "I’ll be right here." M didn’t quite get the reference, so I explained to her that E.T. was saying that he would be in Elliot’s heart, always. She looked up at me, with tears streaming down her face, and asked me, in all earnestness: "Is E.T. in everyone’s hearts, Mama?"
And in that moment I realized something. I now have what I wanted at age twelve. I have that connection, that supreme and inexplicable love. I have it. And it’s sitting on the couch right next to me.
. . . . .
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