Toilet (2010)

“I think life is all about enduring a constant stream of boredom. I desire nothing and I expect nothing. I don’t bother anyone and no one bothers me. Tomorrow will be just like today. And there are no big differences between today and yesterday.”

            I like seeing movies about families. I like seeing these types of movies from today from like the past ten years not older ones. It always interests me to see what other families, even fake ones, are like. Usually the ones I like to watch are ones where there a few siblings and how they cope with each other and how they are different from one another. I have three younger brothers and each one of us has our own quirky personalities and different temperaments. We get along for the most part. We fight like any normal siblings do.

             In the movie Toilet three siblings lose their mother. The middle sibling Ray was told by his mother that she trusts him to take care of their family. He has an older brother Maury who has severe emotional breakdowns and anxiety to the point where he has not left the house in years and cannot leave unless he is supervised. He also used to play the piano but he gave that up. His younger sister Lisa (Tatiana Maslany) is self absorbed but not in a bratty selfish way.

            Oh, and their mother also left them to care for her mother, their grandmother they call Botchin, who was brought over from Japan not too long ago and cannot speak or understand English. Since their mother's death Botchin has been up in her room a lot with the cat and rarely comes down to eat. 

            Ray is a no nonsense kind of person. He wears the same type of outfit everyday to his job in a science lab. He is not too close with his family and did not even show emotion at his mother’s funeral. When Ray was younger his mother gave him Japanese robot toys and ever since then he has been collecting them. One day work Lisa calls him and tells him he needs to come over because Maury is having a meltdown. Ray reluctantly goes to the house and finds Lisa in a huff and Maury on the couch crying. Lisa wants to move into a dorm and take their cat with them. She was also thinking about selling the house and putting Botchin in a home. Maury is upset because they only lost their mother the week before and all their memories are in the house. Ray calms the situation down. Lisa suggests that he move back in with them for a while and he absolutely refuses. That night, however, there is a fire in Ray’s apartment building and he shows up at the house.

            Everyone gets on his nerves with their quirks. Maury and Lisa mostly get on his nerves because they are not as straight laced as he is. Botchin is another story. He does not think that she is related to them. Lisa had to tell him that their mother spent a lot of time and money to find Botchin and bring her there. Ray cannot understand why Botchin takes forever in the bathroom in the mornings and when she is done she walks into the hallway and gives a sigh. Neither his brother nor his sister realizes their grandmother does that every morning.

            Eventually, through them trying to bond with Botchin and being around each other, they come to realizations about themselves that make them all better people.

            I liked all the characters because I saw pieces of myself in each one. Like Maury I suffer from anxiety even though mine is not as severe. I can be an emotional sensitive mess like him. Lisa looks after herself and sometimes looks down at people she cannot deal with. I am definitely guilty of being like her with both things. Ray just wants to be by himself dealing with his own issues and not having to care about anything but himself. Absolutely relate to that. I sometimes wish I could just look out for me and worry only about me but I am still living at home and we are all close in my family. I have responsibilities to do in my house, to my family, and my friends. It was nice to see them all realize they have potential and that they can all be better people. Even better it was nice to see that their grandmother who they never knew before until their mother got sick and who did not speak any English was the one who made them better people.

            Toilet had a good story. The story is not earth shatteringly amazing it is simple and easy to watch. It does have something to do with a toilet and a Japanese toilet at that.  I will admit I watched this movie just to see Tatiana Maslany who is currently my favorite person. There was a scene where Lisa had to do air guitar (she and Botchin bonded when she came downstairs in the middle of the night to find her grandmother watching air guitar videos) and I was laughing. Maslany was great. The three main actors do some air guitar in the credits which, to me, was a perfect way to end the movie. If you can find Toilet online somewhere it is definitely worth watching.

            I just want to give a shout out to the blog stupidsuburbanalison.tumblr.com for telling me about Toilet. Give the blog a look especially if you are an Orphan Black nut.