Scenes From a Family

The boys’ troubled early years are easily seen in the chaos of life at the Stewart home in Los Angeles when all the boys –even 2 year old David - pitch in to make pb&j sandwiches. The scene teeters between humor and pathos, as the older boys compete to open the jelly jar amid overlapping and conflicting advice. Javonte enthusiastically slurps jelly right off the table, and Greg explains that Javonte and Dionte were apparently once beaten on the bottoms of their feet, so no one could see the marks.

Early one morning the usual bedlam is held in check by tension as the family readies for a court appearance, all five boys in matching shirts, neatly tucked into dark slacks. Then comes the poignant adoption ceremony of Javonte and Dionte in the courtroom of a rare friendly judge.

Shortly after filming begins, Greg unexpectedly accepts the job offer of a beleaguered liberal church in Michigan. Stillman and the boys have only a few short weeks to ready for a move to Grand Rapids to start the school year, while Greg remains in Los Angeles to finish out his contract before joining the family.

Anticipation of heartbreak hangs heavy in the air, as Greg drops his family curbside at the airport. The boys slump dejectedly in their chairs, waiting for the plane that will take them far from daddy and surely break up this newborn family. Among them, the boys have moved almost 40 times in their young lives; and every single previous move destroyed a family.

The mood on the plane is subdued, somber despite the excitement of the trip. But when the boys climb the porch steps to their new Victorian mansion, they find a banner of welcome. As they giddily explore the empty top floor with a rousing game of hide and seek and fight off exhaustion in favor of exuberantly filling cup after cup with ice from the refrigerator’s dispenser, you realize their celebration is about much more than a new house; it comes from the unfamiliar realization that this time their family will survive.