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Clip description
Joe (Clive Owen) has taken his youngest son Artie (Nicholas McAnulty) on a road trip after the death of his mother. Artie throws a tantrum and Joe pulls over at a service station to buy him crisps and orange juice to quieten him down. Instead the boy returns to kicking the seat. Joe walks away and has an imaginary conversation with the boy’s dead mother (Laura Fraser) who tells him to cuddle his son. When Joe turns back to the car he sees Artie has calmed down and is eating the crisps. He quietly apologises for trying to force him to eat and the boy accepts.
Curator’s notes
The scene shows that Joe is on a steep learning curve in acquiring parenting skills in conditions that would be testing for anyone. Joe’s child-rearing philosophy of letting children run wild and then pulling them in line when needed is not going to be as straightforward as he first thought. Joe’s imagining a conversation with the boy’s mother is a visually interesting way of showing his internal thought processes. He is trying to discover how a more experienced parent may have tackled this situation.
