A River Runs Through It (1992)

MIMDB score: 7.9
Current IMDB score: 7.3
Director: Robert Redford
Main Actors you care about: Brad Pitt, Tom Skerritt, Robert Redford (narrator), Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Why I liked it: It's one of those life long movies which are fantastic to me.  It's an interesting perspective on life that has a lot of good thoughts worth thinking through.  It's wholesome.

What stands out:  The feeling you get at the end.  Like you just lived the life that was just shown to you.  Gives you experience without having to experience what the characters go through.

What I would change: I don't know if I would necessarily change it but I've never understood the physical fighting the kids did or that kids do.  I always felt so bad every time I did anything like that.  I never understood why physical dominance was a good thing.  I guess evolutionary it's a good thing but I think as a species we are past that.  Since I don't fully understand that part of life I guess I kind of wish there was less of it in the movie.  Fighting should still be thought about as it still happens in life though.

The main character's wife is pretty uninspiring.  They could have done more with her I think.

Favorite Line(s)/Scene:
Jessie Burns: Why is it the people who need the most help... won't take it?
Norman Maclean: I don't know, Jess.

Rev. Maclean: Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true, we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don't know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them - we can love completely without complete understanding.

I seems that you can not help people that need it.  You can try and work at it, do whatever you can using tailored ideas but changing another person (for universally understood as better) comes down to the person.  It has to make sense in their head and that only happens if they work it out. There's also a really good quote that synergizes with this thought: "Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you'll understand what little chance you have of trying to change others."

Also there is no such thing as universally better.  No two people think a like.  So what you think is better is not necessarily better for another person.  Whenever I think I should help someone see something or help fix something I think of "Let he [or she] without sin cast the first stone".  Instead of "fixing" other people I should really focus on myself first.  I'm not perfect so there's always something I could be focusing on about myself instead of someone else.  These thoughts usually lead me to not wanting to change anything about anyone else.

Similar Movies/TV Shows: Legends of the Fall and Last of the Mohicans

"Side" note: The movie is based on an auto-biographical story by the real life main character Norman Maclean.  A George Coonebergs is the master fly fisherman that taught all the actors how to fly fish.  The Maclean's and the Coonebergs have been friends for four generations.  That's kind of a really awesome thing.  A lot of people can't be friends for four years.