The Fundamentals of Caring

The Fundamentals of Caring was recommended to me by a close friend, who over the last three years, I have learned I should listen to the first time because she really understands me as a person. She told me to watch this movie a long, long time ago, knowing that I didn’t like movies, or often take the time to allow myself to watch movies. Throughout our friendship I have learned to hold more respect for people with different opinions, backgrounds, and strengths. This film is a perfect example of what she has taught me along the way. There are multiple definitions for respect, but the one I think this movie focuses in on has to do with recognition of one’s worth.

While this movie has other important takeaways, such as caring and stepping outside of your comfort zone to experience life, neither of those things would have been possible for Ben and Trevor, without respect first. Respect is a concept that is learned over time, and is the basis of many relationships. The level of respect differs in many situations, but there has to be some for the relationship to function.

While Ben has a lot of inner turmoil from his past, it ultimately leads him to this point of deciding to be a caregiver. While it is hard to watch Ben struggle with the loss of his son, and seeing the flashbacks, it makes it realistic to viewers. He is able to put most of this aside while letting it remain a motivation for the choices he makes. While we see Ben and Trevor play a large amount of practical jokes on each other, they’re all in decent humor. If they didn’t respect each other I could see the jokes either not existing, or being exceptionally hurtful. Going along with that, if Ben did not respect Trevor, he would not have offered to take him on a cross country trip. We can see from the way that Ben talks to Trevor he respects him, and his opinions.

Ben makes Trevor go ask Dot to come inside the restaurant. He has Trevor attempt this to reinforce to Trevor that he is capable of doing whatever he desires. If Ben merely cared for Trevor, he might have gone outside and asked Dot to join them. Because of this respect, he pushes Trevor to use his own ability to do it for himself. He also allows and encourages Trevor to go to dinner with Dot alone. If he had merely cared for Trevor, he probably would have gone with them, and sat at a table nearby. However, Ben sits in the room where he can still see them, relaxes and has a beer. Even though it is his normal routine, that night Ben has enough respect for Trevor to allow him a night to be freed from his CPAP machine. Trevor is old enough to make his own decisions regarding his healthcare, and Ben respects this choice.

While this movie may not exactly teach us how to respect someone, it definitely shows us how to use the respect that we do have. We won’t always understand the motivation or the “why” that someone does something, however we can choose to see their worth and significance.

A cool thing I picked up from the second time I watched the movie is the significance of the 1 in 3500. We know that Ben goes home and actually does his research on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, and when Dot’s father asks about how rare it is, Ben responds that it affects 1 in 3500. From this we see why Trevor always asks to pick a number between 1 and 3500.