Mermaids: Taking a Deeper Dive

    Richard Benjamin’s 1990s coming-of-age film, Mermaids, traces 15-year-old Charlotte Flax’s journey as she grapples with her mother’s atypical, transitory and promiscuous lifestyle. The film, set in the 1960s, illustrates Charlotte’s struggle with her desire for an ideal family while understanding the instability within her own family. At first, Charlotte’s idealized vision of family and moral life is shaped by her unique family history and societal pressures; however, a major climatic event ultimately shatters her naive ideology, allowing her to “come-of-age.” 

    At the beginning of the film, Charlotte’s history of instability influences her current family ideals.  Because of her mother’s past tumultuous relationships – her pattern of extramarital affairs with employers – Charlotte and her half-sister Kate have moved 18 times. She has never experienced long-term friendships, romance, or a stable living situation. Charlotte has a constant need for a father because she lacks a reliable parent.  For example, when Charlotte’s mother tries to force her to purchase new shoes for school, she refuses because she wants to continue to wear dad's old shoes. Charlotte sees her mother’s attempts to discard his shoes as an endeavor to abolish any hope of her father returning home. Although Charlotte's need for a structured family dynamic primarily stems from her unstable past, this need is heightened by society’s notions of the “ideal” nuclear family. For example, Charlotte meets the “perfect” nuclear family household – a mother, father, and two children under one roof. She internally narrates, “[a] real, live father... living in the same house as his wife and kids. They're perfect. This is like television" (Mermaids). Her reference to “television” reveals that her idealized vision of a perfect family is specifically framed by popular media.  She even says, “[m]aybe they’ll adopt me" (Mermaids). Here, Charlotte displays her true dissatisfaction with her life, and her desperation to attain the “perfect” nuclear family structure in suggesting adoption. She takes this one step further when she tells them “[m]y father would dance with me all the time" (Mermaids). This is untrue because she has no memories of her father. Charlotte wants her family structure to fit societal norms to the extent that she would lie to attain conformity.

    Not only does Charlotte seek an idyllic family structure, but social expectations also frame her moral and religious ideals. Charlotte rejects her Jewish heritage and adopts Catholicism. Charlotte’s investment in Catholicism is so intense that she wants to become a nun to achieve utmost moral structure and stability. Catholicism allows Charlotte to have a source of dependability, a sense of belonging, and a point of religious moral consistency which modern society expects her to have. Ironically, it is a climactic moment where Charlotte breaks from Catholic morality forcing her to mature and reconceptualize family ideals. A drunk Charlotte neglects her 8-year-old sister leaving her alone near a stream at night to meet a boy with whom she is infatuated.  Her sister falls into the creek and drowns, leaving her hospitalized. When Charlotte is faced with the existential thought of losing her sister, she is forced to reevaluate her ideals. She cannot imagine losing her family, despite its “imperfection.” The threat of her sister’s death causes her to appreciate her family with all of its flaws and to not take it for granted. Charlotte finally realizes her twisted perception of adulthood and family. Through the result of Charlotte's reckless behavior akin to her mother’s impulsivity, Charlotte comes to understand the imperfection of the world and her mother. The film’s title, Mermaids, represents the naive belief in something that does not actually exist. Just as children believe in the fantasy of mermaids, Charlotte once believed in the fantasy of a “perfect” family. She realizes that the standards to which she previously held her mother were unrealistic manifestations of her impossible nuclear family fantasy. She concludes nobody is perfect. This growth was essential to her coming to a deeper understanding of who she is and where she comes from; her own coming of age.