Masculine mentors rescue a son-husband.

Readership: All; Single Men;
Theme: The Gift of Singleness
Length: 600 words
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Secondhand Lions is a 2003 family-friendly coming-of-age comedy directed by Tim McCanlies and starring Haley Joel Osmet, Michael Caine, and Robert Duvall. I usually include the trailer at this point, but the trailer gives far too much away.

Secondhand Lions is mostly set in 1960s West Texas, although we’re not told exactly where. Walter (Haley Joel Osmet) is a 14-year-old son-husband described as a “sissy boy”. His devouring mother, Mae (Kyra Sedgwick), drops him off with her uncles, Hub (Robert Duvall) and Garth (Michael Caine) McCann (note the similarity with the director’s last name). Hub and Garth disappeared in 1914 and suddenly returned to Texas in the ’60s. There are all kinds of rumors about where they’ve been and what they’ve been doing all those years, but the one consistent rumor is that they have a fortune stashed away somewhere on their farm.

Mae — whom relatives describe as “a lousy damn mother” and “that loose widow woman” — supposedly dropped off Walter so that she could attend the Fort Worth College of Court Reporting, but in reality she wants Walter to find the stash while she goes for another ride on the carousel.

Unexpectedly, Garth — the younger and less cantankerous of the two McCann brothers — begins to tell Walter stories about where he and Hub were for 50 years. According to Garth, they fought in WWI with the French Foreign Legion, then had all kinds of adventures in North Africa. Thanks to his great-uncles’ mentorship, Garth learns to embrace agency and masculinity.

I saved this review for last in this series because the previous two movies I reviewed are pretty dark, especially Joker. By contrast, Secondhand Lions is much more cheerful and hopeful, and I wanted to end this series on a positive, optimistic note. This is one of my favorite movies to rewatch with my kids, and although there is some off-color humor, it’s goes by quickly enough that little kids don’t notice it. The scenes where Garth tells Walter about his and Hub’s adventures in war and fighting slavers in North Africa are depicted through Walter’s imagination, so the violence is bloodless and cartoonish. It’s more comedic than scary.

Despite all that, the movie deals with a surprising number of heavy subjects. Mae is an immoral, selfish single mother, even though she’s a widow. She only considers her own needs, neglecting Walter’s needs. Predictably, Mae is attracted to abusive bad boys. Relatives squabble over the McCann brothers’ rumored fortune. Hub suffers from unresolved grief, and both the McCann brothers struggle with finding meaning and purpose in old age after a life filled with war and adventure. They may be safe now, but they’re bored. As Garth says, “A man’s body may grow old, but inside his spirit can still be as young and as restless as ever.”

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In the end, Hub and Garth teach Walter what it means to be a man. People — especially children — learn mostly through observation and imitation. Consequently, no woman can teach a boy, or a young man, what it means to be a man. Only a man can do that. Ideally, that would be his father, but not everyone is so blessed. In such cases, a young man needs mentors – surrogate fathers. Secondhand Lions makes that point in a humorous, cheerful, lighthearted way which helps the message get through to younger children without being preachy. The abundance of slapstick humor keeps young children entertained, while the heavy subject matter keeps adults thinking.

I highly recommend Secondhand Lions for families with kids of all ages. You can find Secondhand Lions streaming on Amazon Prime.

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