“Forget your troubles and just get happy!   Ya better chase all your cares away!” (Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, 1930)

As we continue our year-long mission ~~ Happiness through reminiscing and open the Guidebook to March, Welcome to the 2019 Edition of Brigadoon  ~ The Pursuit Of A Happier Life. 

Happiness can surely be found here. Brigadoon is a blessing to those who live there. It is a place of safety, (it does not appear on any map),  contains beautiful scenery (the highlands of Scotland), beautiful and colorful people, (the bride and bridegroom Charles Dalrymple and Jean Campbell), and characters to whom the audience is immediately drawn (Fiona Campbell and Tommie Albright).

It is in the characters of Tommie and Fiona and the relationship they build that we find the answers to this month’s thought-provoking questions:

How can this film help us engage and reach those clients, residents, and family members who seem unreachable?

From its opening scene on  MacConnachy Square to Heather on the Hill this film is engaging with bright colors, action dance, sing-a-long songs (Go Home with bonnie Jean), and of course, romance. What girl would not want to be swept off her feet (both literally and figuratively) by Gene Kelly?

What makes certain actors or actresses our favorites?   What feelings do they evoke when we see them?

In the character of Tommie, we see Kelly at his most thoughtful vulnerable.  (The Highlands give him “the sense of being in a cathedral, …Something seems wrong. Especially about Jane and me and that makes everything seem wrong.”) When he meets Fiona, the simple act of touching her hand in greeting gives him purpose.

Throughout the remainder of the film, he is in the pursuit of her; it is his gentleness toward her together with his balletic yet athletic dancing that draws the audience to him.  He is every inch the man women want or wish they had. When he makes his decision to stay  (following another beautiful dance, Come to Me Bend to Me), we are happy because that's how the musical formula works: Boy meets girl, boy gets girl.  There is comfort in the knowledge that relationships that are “meant to be”  follow a path and although there may be detours along the way there is a happy ending in sight. 

The Classic Movie Musical thrives on its simple storyline and a happy ending yet that does not mean it has lost its ability to be relevant or fresh to a new generation.  The classic movie musical never goes out of style. This musical has great lessons to teach from honesty and friendship; to love lost and found and the courage to stray from the known to the unknown in pursuit of a happier life.

Embrace the unknown and stray from your path with your clients, residents, students, and intergenerational family members when you join Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse in Brigadoon!

~~Lori