So two hours after I posted my previous entry and succinctly wrote there that I haven’t watched the Bucket List yet, I did. I searched high and low for a free online link of the movie (as it is the only way I can watch it at this time of the day) and finally found one.
The critics, I must say, are nuts for ever thinking that this movie lacks some form of plot or story or whatever reason they gave for giving it a C or a B, for that matter. It was an A for me, A++ if there’s such a thing. The story is simple enough: two men dying of cancer. One is a family man working as an automobile mechanic. One is soulless billionaire, estranged from his only daughter. If the spectrum of society separated them, their illness united them. Together, the two embarked on a life journey like never before. Some may say that traveling around the globe (on a private plane) is not such a wondrous and unique idea to realize your “bucket list” but, if you look beyond the globe-trotting adventures that Edward (Jack Nicholson) and Carter (Morgan Freeman) managed to fulfill during the last days of their lives, you would see two complete strangers with nothing in common between them sharing what is the most important lesson of our lives–seizing the moment and… finding joy in it.
According to Carter in the movie, when Egyptians die and they reach the gates of heaven, there are two questions waiting for them. Their answers will determine whether or not they go the other side or not. The questions are: Did you find joy in your life? And did your life bring joy to another? By the end of the movie, both characters managed to save one another in the truest act of selfless sacrifice. In their final days, both of them fulfilled each others’ “bucket list,”so to speak.
Carter’s words to Edward: “Find the joy in your life.”
