Is there something about getting older that I find myself looking for shortcuts. To make things simpler, less complicated and less trouble. Or, is it the loss of confidence, maybe bravado, from being older. I can remember being reckless (I've tended to caution, not a big dare devil all my life) enough to open my computer and fix it myself, things like that, in my younger years. Was it confidence or trust or that feeling of invulnerability that people say young people have. I don't know. These days, I look for shortcuts.

Maybe its the idea or feeling that I just don't have as much time. I'm 59 now. Since December. Turning 50 was a big deal for me. Now 60 is coming around the corner, assuming I get there, and I don't feel too bad about it. Still seems an odd surprise, even though I can count past 60 even as far as being mathematically correct. The surprise is finding myself this old. I wasn't born this way. I used to be much younger and I looked different too.

Younger people look at me and assume I've always looked this way. I can remember thinking the same, even though it isn't logical, about people when I was younger. Look at old photographs and you imagine everyone living in black and white with (mostly) dour expressions. It's hard to think of them as real people in colour. But, real life has always been in colour. Its only technology that couldn't show it that way, at the time. We rely too much on technology, far too much as time goes on.

Anyway, shortcuts, to stay on topic. The more time I spend looking for shortcuts the more I think about the time I've wasted looking for shortcuts that I usually end up rejecting and I could have been actually making real progress, without shortcuts. (There's a good run on sentence for you, and I'm not changing it).

Muriel Dreams of a Better Life and Waits for it to Happen

Muriel dreams of a wonderful life with a fantastic wedding and a Prince Charming. She thinks having this will change her life for her. Muriel gets the wedding and the Prince but discovers those things were just dreams and her reality can be so much better when she stops waiting for her dreams to happen and goes after life herself.

Muriel is a modern Cinderella who makes it all come out right, for herself. You can be proud of Muriel because she starts on the bottom and pulls herself up again, twice. The second time even better than the first.

Muriel is a nobody girl living in Porpoise Spit, Australia. She doesn’t have a job, and spends most of her time listening to ABBA music in her room, dreaming of the life she wants. Her life has no direction, her Father makes her feel like nothing. All Muriel wants is a wedding. Her wedding.

She steals money from her Father and takes a tropical vacation, befriends Rhonda and returns home. But she doesn’t stay there. Rather than face her Father about the missing money Muriel strikes out on her own. She works in a video store and meets Tim. Rhonda is there too. You would think it would all just go along from there – but Muriel marries rich!

Muriel Gets her Dream Wedding

When Muriel does get her wedding and changes her life she discovers the life she thought she wanted so much is nothing like the life she could have on her own. She leaves her husband, an arranged marriage with a South African soccer player, finds her friend Rhonda (who is now wheel chair bound and living with her Mother back in Porpoise Spit) and together they leave for parts unknown – somewhere not Porpoise Spit, Australia.

One of the great things about this movie are the stories of the secondary characters. Muriel’s Mother (Betty) has the saddest story. Muriel’s Mother mistakenly wears shoes she did not pay for out of the shopping mall. She is arrested. The family attacks her, especially Muriel’s Father who is verbally abusive to everyone in the family and has a mistress on the side (which Betty chooses not to know). Betty, abused by all and even snubbed by Muriel at a time when she tried to connect with her, has an emotional breakdown and commits suicide.

The scene where the laundry is in rags and still left hanging on the drying rack outside – after Betty has died is one which sticks in my mind. This is Muriel’s visit home after the funeral. She realizes the life her Mother led, a quiet desperate and sad life. This is where Muriel changes her own life, again, and frees herself from her past and all those old dreams.

Muriel Doesn’t Make Changing your Life Look Easy but She Shows it can be Done

It is a wonderful movie. Without seeing it for yourself you can’t know how great it is and have that awesome feeling at the end as Muriel takes the taxi out of Porpoise Spit, Australia finally leaving her old sad life behind.

I like seeing “Muriel” in movies since 1994 when Muriel’s Wedding was made.. Of course, the actress (Toni Collette) went on to make more movies but she will always be Muriel in my mind. Muriel is too wonderful to ever be forgotten. Snort (you just have to watch the movie).