The State of Grace

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Wie iets verdachts opmerkt, kan dit altijd melden aan onze Klantenservice, zodat ons Fraudeteam het verder kan onderzoeken. But the other central preoccupation of teen-themed movies, it seems to me, is fitting in. I’m talking about stories in which the protagonist is struggling to determine and/or establish his social identity, which is really more of an Institutionalized story model, hence the subgenre I call “High School Institution.” Movies in this category would include The Breakfast Club, Clueless, Mean Girls, Can’t Buy Me Love, Cruel Intentions, etc. And I think what those stories do — and John Hughes, the bard of eighties teen angst, was a master of the form — is give us a framework to understand that everyone in high school is hiding behind an identity that is, to one degree or another, contrived, be it consciously or unconsciously. We need that mask we adopt — that false front — to protect us while we figure out who we really are. And still reeling from all that, I found myself displaced from the familiar comfort of the halls of public school, where I’d enjoyed tremendous freedom with minimal oversight or accountability, and thrust into the regimented, buttoned-down structure of Jesuit prep school. Overnight, nothing in my life was the same as it had so reliably been. Only a year earlier, I’d had a very clear vision of where everything was headed—an idiotic John Hughes–inspired fantasy of infinite free-range teenage adventures with me and my little gang on the streets of the Bronx, just as life had always been. I can’t say much more about State of Grace than I’ve already expressed in the essay above, but I absolutely second your assessment: I thought it was brilliant at 14, I think it’s messy and flawed and still brilliant at 43. State of Grace didn’t have the brand-name recognition of The Godfather, Part III or the visceral kineticism of GoodFellas, but it has so much going for it to appreciate in its own right: pitch-perfect performances from an all-star cast; great New York locations (impeccably captured on celluloid by Jordan Cronenweth); Ennio Morricone’s elegiac score; and a story about a criminal subculture — the Westies — that is endlessly fascinating and, strangely, has been largely underrepresented in favor of its Italian counterpart.​ Contributions should be appropriate for a global audience. Please avoid using profanity or attempts to approximate profanity with creative spelling, in any language. Comments and media that include hate speech, discriminatory remarks, threats, sexually explicit remarks, violence, or the promotion of illegal activity are not permitted.

A few years later, working again with Gary Oldman on BASQUIAT, I made reference to Sean’s disruptive behavior, and he had no idea what I was talking about. That’s how a truly gifted actor who is not also a malevolent scumbag behaves: Gary concentrated on his performance. Nothing else mattered to him.

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I can certainly appreciate the frustrations you experienced on the production. I worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood for over a decade — I was never produced, though I developed projects for actor/producer Ice Cube and Lights Out producer Lawrence Grey, among others — but ultimately grew battle-weary from all the capricious egos that so often stood in the way of anything getting done in that town. (All the “rules” changed after the 2008 WGA strike, and selling specs and setting up features, as I’m sure you’re aware, became infinitely more challenging.) I don’t mind creative collaboration and compromise — I welcome it— but not at the expense of eventually getting something produced. So, I’ve transitioned from screenwriter to author/blogger, and I am enjoying the creative freedom and fulfillment that’s afforded me. Alle content dient echt en door de gast zelf geschreven te zijn. Beoordelingen zijn het waardevolst als ze origineel en objectief zijn. Je bijdrage dient van jezelf te zijn. Accommodatiepartners van Booking.com mogen niet namens de gast schrijven of de gast iets aanbieden in ruil voor een beoordeling. Pogingen om de score van een concurrent te verlagen door het schrijven van een negatieve beoordeling worden niet geaccepteerd. Jules, I am absolutely delighted you stopped by the blog to share your thoughts on State of Grace; I hope this won’t be your last visit. Most of my posts are about either filmmaking/storytelling or my New York upbringing — my most recent essay, “The Lost Boys of the Bronx: A Tribute to Joel Schumacher,” is about both— and as a fellow New Yorker/filmmaker, I think you’d bring a lot to the conversations around here! It’s admittedly not as good as sharing war stories over a Guinness at the Landmark, but you’re nonetheless welcome to pull up a chair and join me here any time! Contributions should be travel related. The most helpful contributions are detailed and help others make better decisions. Please don’t include personal, political, ethical, or religious commentary. Promotional content will be removed and issues concerning Booking.com’s services should be routed to our Customer Service or Accommodation Service teams. John, my thanks to you for sharing your fondness and your memories of State of Grace, and for turning me on to The Falcon and the Snowman; it’s never too late, after all, to experience an overlooked classic.​

Oh, wow — thank you, Leslie, for reading the post and leaving such a gracious comment! I really appreciate your time and engagement. Whip-smart, hilarious and unapologetically honest, The State of Grace by Rachael Lucas is a heart-warming story of one girl trying to work out where she fits in, and whether she even wants to. From Goodreads.I recently read a different sort of Irish crime story: Tana French’s The Trespasser (which I reviewed here). I mention it because it is also a story about friendship, and about how the people who come into our orbit, whether by deliberate invitation or circumstantial happenstance, shape our very life experience: They create our reality — sometimes deliberately, sometimes inadvertently; sometimes malignantly, sometimes benignly; sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously, often a good bit of both — regardless of the fanciful notions we harbor about who we are and how things will be, much the same as Terry Noonan’s quixotic belief “in angels, or the saints, or that there’s such a thing as a state of grace.” Anyway, it’s a book worth reading, and I think you would appreciate its thematic preoccupations.​ It is a humorous, liberating and dynamite continuation of Grace's journey to find her four soul bonds and to lose most of remaining pieces of agathos-like mindset she does not agree with anymore. The dynamics of the relationship she had with Riot transforms to completely new level with Bullet added to the equation, in the best way possible, and I cannot wait to add two more figures and discover how that would work out! I watched it last night for the first time in maybe 4 years, but it was most likely the 52nd time I’ve viewed it since it was suggested to me by my dad in 1996. It’s interesting how a film can have such impact on one’s life. It seems that ‘State of Grace’ came along at a time when your own life was going through significant upheavals and in it you saw something you identified with and which appealed to your sense, even in your early teens, that your life was changing irrevocably and that nothing would ever be the same again.

Cooper: You’re the man! Thanks for being such a steadfast support of that great movie and this humble tribute to it. Please welcome your friend into our club! I was unable to put this book down because I needed to know who was in the relationship, the purpose of all this and the answers to mysteries that the characters and Bullet had mentioned. Little prophecies, a curse and instructions that we are waiting to see unfold. Her relationship with her best friend also felt realistic. The friend, Anna, is described as the kind of person who is friends with everyone. She also helps Grace with some social stuff, e.g., interpreting ambiguous text messages. Although not universal, this is a common real-life friendship pattern I’ve seen described in non-fiction. Grace also mentions some reasons why Anna is friends with her: she makes Anna laugh and they have shared interests in fandom. This lets us see their friendship is not one-sided. Grace’s descriptions are given in ways that autistic readers will connect with, and with enough detail (as far as I can tell) for neurotypical readers to understand what it can be like to be autistic while having to deal with the demands of ordinary life—a careful and impressive balance. And yet the one “spoiler” in State of Grace wouldn’t diminish the power of that movie at all even if you did know Terry’s secret from the outset. Christ, Joanou practically telegraphs it during that opening scene in Queensbridge Park! Still, no one seems to see it coming.I pressed through, though and Grace redeemed her selfish ass a little. But I still don't think Bullet got a chance to shine like he deserved. *salty*

Maureen Ryan, Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood (New York: Mariner Books, 2023), 188 Grace has Asperger's and her own way of looking at the world. She's got a horse and a best friend who understand her, and that's pretty much all she needs. But when Grace kisses Gabe and things start to change at home, the world doesn't make much sense to her any more. You might know your neighbors name if you live here, or your wife may have friends in the community garden but there is very little left of any roots, ethnic tradition, or the “Cheers” factor at local businesses, when maybe 20 or so years ago a corner bar or store still felt like an extention of home. Las aportaciones de contenido deben estar relacionadas con los viajes. El contenido detallado es el más útil y el que ayuda a otros a tomar mejores decisiones. Por favor, no incluyas comentarios personales, políticos, éticos o religiosos. El contenido publicitario será eliminado y los problemas relacionados con los servicios de Booking.com deben reenviarse a nuestros equipos de atención al cliente o al alojamiento.

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These read to me as suboptimal parenting decisions by Grace’s mother, rather than something inherent to Grace being autistic, but someone who came to the book exposed to the stereotype of autistic people as burdens might interpret it as consistent with the stereotype. It helps that Grace’s narrative make it clear that being autistic affects her far more than it affects others. This reflects autistic people’s real-life experiences: it is harder to be us than to be our family members. El objetivo de estas pautas y normas es que el contenido de Booking.com siga siendo relevante y para todos los públicos, sin limitar la libertad de expresar opiniones fuertes. Las pautas y normas son aplicables sin importar la emotividad del comentario. It’s certainly had an influence on my writing in ways unexamined up till now, directly (if unconsciously) serving as an inspiration for my forthcoming novel Escape from Rikers Island. One of the key characters in the book, Dennis, who plays a small but crucial role, was himself a lowlife rent-a-thug for the Westies in the seventies and eighties. Is it possible I unknowingly named him for State of Grace screenwriter Dennis McIntyre? Last month, we talked about the subject of creative inspiration: that an artist’s many influences affect his worldview and sensibilities in ways totally unique to him, and that they, along with his particular life experiences, constitute his voice. In time, those influences become so embedded in his subconscious that he is no longer necessarily aware of the sway they hold over the art he produces, and as his confidence in his craft intensifies, his intellectual capacity to identify them in his work diminishes in kind. A rare example of a convincing female protagonist with autism in a compelling and well-crafted romance.