A popular movie sequel prompts memories, hopes for the future
"Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlej ..."
To ring in the new year, I wanted to share a fun fact about my wife, Jill: She takes her “Beetlejuice” very, very seriously, and nothing — not even Huntington’s disease — will ever take that away from her.
When the sequel to the 1988 cult classic was announced — trust me, it was one of the highlights of last year — Jill’s reaction was pure joy. She added the release date to our family calendar in big, bold, red letters. For months, she treated our home to impromptu performances of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” and “Jump in the Line (Shake, Señora),” songs from the original movie. This is something that she and our daughter, Alexus, who also is gene-positive for Huntington’s disease, would do when they’d watch the film together.
Anytime the original “Beetlejuice” movie appeared on TV, whether we were halfway through dinner or heading to bed, everything stopped. “Just for a few minutes,” she’d say. But we all knew we’d be watching it until the credits rolled.
As opening night to the sequel, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” approached, Jill transformed into a mix of movie critic and excited child on Christmas morning. She purchased tickets as soon as they were available and planned our theater arrival with military precision.
“We need to get there early,” she announced the day before. “Like, two hours early.”
“The movie doesn’t start until 7:30 p.m.,” I reminded her.
“Exactly. So we’ll leave at 5:15.”
Her expression told me this wasn’t up for debate. It wasn’t just excitement Jill was experiencing. She was in her element, and I knew better than to argue.
True to form, once we arrived at the theater, Jill practically bounced through the lobby to pick up the drinks and snacks she had preordered. As other moviegoers trickled in over the next two hours, Jill shared trivia about the original film, her eyes sparkling with anticipation.
As the opening credits rolled, Jill’s face lit up. She squeezed my hand during familiar callbacks to the original, laughed at the new jokes, and seemed to be having exactly the experience she’d hoped for. But about halfway through the film, I glanced over and noticed something unexpected: tears rolling down her cheeks.
This wasn’t the reaction I’d expected from a supernatural comedy. Concerned, I leaned closer.
“My dad loved the first one,” she whispered, catching my look. “We used to watch it together all the time. He would randomly repeat ‘Beetlejuice’ three times, as if that worked in the real world.” Jill’s father passed away from complications of HD in 2011, and here in the darkness of the theater, those memories were playing alongside the film.
“He had really good taste in movies,” she added with a gentle smile, noticing my sadness. Then, with the kind of grace that still amazes me after all these years, she shared something that touched my heart: “If Huntington’s means I’m not here for the third one, you have to promise to bring Alexus. Celebrate my great taste.”
I promised, of course. And added that she has excellent taste — in movies and (if I do say so myself) husbands too. She squeezed my hand again, and we turned back to the screen, but my mind was elsewhere.
Sometimes a sequel does more than continue a story. Sometimes it opens a door to memories we hold dear, allowing us to share them with those we love. Sometimes it reminds us of the bittersweet reality that our time together is precious. And sometimes, in a crowded theater, we find moments of profound connection that remind us to cherish every laugh, every tear, and every shared moment.
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About the Author
Jean Miller
Carlos – thank you so much for sharing your family’s beautiful memories of this movie. My daughter Kelly, who had JHD, also loved Beattlejuice. When it became available I bought the video and we watched many times singing and laughing all the way through it.
I, too, watch it every time it’s on TV. Thank you for allowing me to remember those wonderful times Kelly & I shared on this movie! {{{{HUGS}}}}
Jean Miller
Mary Ann Pfeifer Burger
Very inspiring story. Thank you.
Virginia Andrews
Thank you for sharing this beautiful story.
Karl Miran
Carlos: I look forward to your weekly essays. I took a stab at making sense of another movie (not Beetlejuice 2) that is making waves right now. Please contact me if you want to help get a wider audience for any of this
“A Complete Unknown”
and an often-unknown disease
As a Bob Dylan fan (for 50+ years) I was eager to see “A Complete Unknown”, the movie that traces his evolution from a teenager arriving in New York City to a cultural phenomenon. As a husband and caregiver of a woman with late-stage Huntington’s Disease, I was also interested to see how the film portrayed Dylan’s well-documented visits to his “first idol,” Woody Guthrie.
The filmmakers made Guthrie central to the storyline. In the opening minutes, Dylan is travelling to New Jersey in the winter of 1961 to see Woody at Greystone Mental Hospital, with Woody’s recording of “Dusty Old Dust (So Long, It’s Been Good to Know Yuh”) playing. The visit demonstrates how much Dylan’s desire to meet Guthrie motivated his move to the east coast. Although it was clearly difficult for the young folksinger to witness the effects of Huntington’s Disease on his idol, he strives to connect. Bob plays a song that he wrote for Woody and visits the hospital several other times, the last visit signifying a final goodbye (including a cover version of “Dusty Old Dust” by the actor playing Dylan.) By 1965, when the movie places that farewell visit, Guthrie was less able to appreciate visitors, and Dylan’s musical career was evolving as he “went electric”, leaving folk music fans disappointed.
A friend, also a Huntington’s caregiver, had alerted me that the film never mentions which disease was ravaging Guthrie. Moviegoers who don’t already know about Woody’s Huntington’s wouldn’t know why he was bed-bound, mostly mute, at a mental hospital. The failure to mention Huntington’s Disease is not the movie’s only omission or re-arrangement of well-known facts. For the most part, critics have tolerated those editorial decisions, understanding their value in creating a better narrative about Dylan’s artistic evolution and his impact on America. However, this particular omission seems to weaken the movie’s message. In my friend’s words: “Such a missed opportunity!”
To be clear, the movie makers know their craft better than I do. The movie playing in theaters is outstanding, and it may well earn a boatload of Oscar awards. Further, this critique does not spring from the conviction that James Mangold or the scriptwriters behind “A Complete Unknown” owe anything to Huntington’s Disease patients or caregivers. However, if the movie HAD told the audience about Woody’s disease, it could have delivered a deeper truth (especially to those who are unaware of HD) in the same ways tha Dylan’s songs have always done.
To illustrate how the failure to mention HD is problematic, take two points for which the movie has been praised: Scoot McNairy’s portrayal of Guthrie, and Dylan’s ongoing relationship with Woody after that first visit. McNairy says he prepared by studying pictures of Guthrie taken at Greystone, and through his interactions with other HD patients. His version of Guthrie does not look exactly like the late-stage HD patients I know, but it is believable, given the unique course of symptoms every HD patient experiences. The film also demonstrates the young Dylan’s humanity, as he returns again and again to Greystone. Some critics have said that Dylan’s initial visit was motivated by a need to “touch the spark” of Woody’s genius, but the many repeat visits show that Bob had a “sense of the sacred” in this man who could no longer strum his guitar or sing. His devotion to Woody is especially striking because the movie also shows Dylan as ambitious, sometimes ruthless and self-absorbed in other contexts. Several girlfriends in the movie say it clearly: “Bob, you’re really a jerk.”
As HD caregivers, we are all familiar with friends and family who withdraw when they are unsure what to say, or worried about making the person with HD sad. Those people could gain so much from understanding the resilient humanity shown by the Dylan and Guthrie characters in the face of Huntington’s.
Much of Dylan’s strength as an artist comes from his lyrics’ description of the universal human condition. The stories he weaves focus on good and evil: love, war, jealousy, loss, joy, and other parts of our reality. Huntington’s and other incurable diseases are still part of the human condition, too. Families today face similar issues and difficult choices to those Marjorie Guthrie faced in the 1950’s and 1960’s Scientists are on the path to a cure for HD, but they ain’t there yet.*
As Dylan sang in the concluding verse of “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”, the poet’s task, in the midst of our messy human existence, begins with naming, understanding, and confronting the evils and ills of the world:
And I’ll tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it
And reflect from the mountain so all souls can see it
And I’ll stand on the ocean until I start sinking
But I’ll know my song well before I start singing
Even though the movie failed to speak this part of the story, we in the HD Community can use it to claim our opportunity to ‘tell it and speak it and think it and breathe it’ to the world.
* Woody Guthrie, kept a stack of business cards at Greystone Hospital, with “I ain’t dead yet” printed on the back side.