Helen Hunt Filmography Part 20: Ride

Helen Hunt struggles with letting go, raising a young adult, learning to surf, and getting into a wet suit.

In Ride (2014) Helen Hunt plays a uptight New Yorker. Her son, Angelo (Brenton Thwaites) drops out of NYU to stay in LA with his dad and surf and write. She follows him to California, and her efforts to get him back on track predictably fail and lead to resentment from him.

His criticism of her control freakishness, leads her to take up surfing. Initially she tries this on her own, unsuccessfully. At the urging of her driver, Ramon (David Zayas), she hires an instructor, Ian (Luke Wilson).

While trying to prove something to her son, she ends finding peace by letting go of control. She learns her son needs her to not need anything from him. He need her not to need him to be or do any particular thing. He needs the freedom to make choices and mistakes. He needs her to support his independence—from a distance.

With this distance they develop a new closeness. As she releases her expectations of Angelo, she is able to release her expectations of herself. She learns able to do the things she wants to do and be the person she wants to be.

Helen Hunt is behind the camera again as writer and director. I think this is a solid film. Never too unbelievable or too predictable.

I’m apparently at that point in life where I like movies about women having mid-life crises and coming out happier and healthier on the other side….I don’t know what that foreshadows for me, but hopefully it involves the beach.