As the old cliché goes, life is a funny thing.  We can think one way about something today, and later have the opposite opinion.  That sounds like the perfect set up for a movie like Flipped (2010), and you will see why in a moment.  I would simply add here that it is a concept that goes beyond what is contained in the film.  I spent much of my life thinking that I would be married with a family by the time I got to my current age.  But when I entered my late thirties, I thought God was calling me to a different vocation.  Currently, it seems he has me back on my original path.  Who knows besides God?  Life is a funny thing.

What Bryce Loski (Ryan Ketzner) does not find funny at the beginning of Flipped is the attention shown him by Julianna “Juli” Baker (Morgan Lily).  As the thirteen-year-old Bryce (Callan McAuliffe) narrates his side of the relationship, it begins as soon as his family moves into their new home.  Upon opening the doors to the moving van, she is there offering to help.  Despite his efforts to shoo her away, as well as by his dad, Steven Loski (Anthony Edwards), Bryce and Juli end up inadvertently holding hands.  The thirteen-year-old Juli (Madeline Carroll) tells us her perspective, and she senses something in his reticence that has her pining for him for the next several years.  Before continuing, I should clarify what might seem obvious thus far: the movie alternates between their points of view.  For clarity’s sake, I will tell it in a more linear fashion.  At any rate, Bryce continues to feel that Juli’s focus on him is unwarranted, particularly as they get into junior high.  Not only is her affection unwanted, but he sees her quirks as socially awkward and something to be avoided.  This comes to the fore with the sycamore tree.  At their school bus stop there sits a towering wood that she climbs one day.  From way up in its branches, she is able to announce the oncoming transportation.  Yet, her main reason for going aloft is to marvel in the view.  This comes to an end one day when the owners of the tree decide to cut it down.  Her pleadings with Bryce to sit in the branches with her and prevent the devastation go ignored.  It is only several hours later when Juli’s father, Richard Baker (Aidan Quinn), arrives to convince her to come down that she complies.  The incident merits the front page of the newspaper in this sleepy town, and the story interests Chet Duncan (John Mahoney), Bryce’s grandfather.  To Bryce’s bewilderment, Chet sees in Juli the same spirit as his late wife.  Thus, Chet goes across the street to help Juli repair the front yard on the Baker’s rented home.  Because Juli believes that everything is better now with Bryce, she starts bringing over eggs produced by her prize chickens.  Because he still wants nothing to do with her, he does not know what to do with the gift.  He offers them to his parents, but Steven starts making all sorts of wild suppositions as to their quality.  Thanks to dad’s narrowmindedness, Bryce is all too happy to surreptitiously throw the eggs in the garbage, though he tells himself that he feels bad for doing so.  Those thoughts are made worse when Juli catches him in the act.  For the first time, she considers that maybe this boy on whom she has had a crush for so long is not all that she has thought him to be.  Dealing with that disapproval is also a turning point for Bryce.  Despite the fact that all the girls in school, including the so-called “prettiest,” Sherry Stalls (Ashley Taylor), are suddenly wanting to be with him, Bryce begins liking Juli.  At first, he does not know what to do with these feelings, thinking that he needs to “get a hold of himself.”  The person he shares this dilemma with is his best friend, Garrett Einbinder (Israel Broussard), who is a dolt.  Garrett sees only ostracizing for Bryce, and they have a brief laugh about Juli’s special needs uncle, Daniel Baker (Kevin Weisman).  Unfortunately, Juli, who had heard about Bryce’s change of heart, overhears the exchange.  Thus, when the Bakers are invited to the Loskis for dinner, Juli enters and says she is not speaking to Bryce.  During the meal, Steven behaves in a boorish manner, and Juli ends up pitying them for having a dad such is him.  As such, she apologizes to Bryce in an offhand way as she is leaving.  For him, it indicates that Juli no longer cares for him, which means he has to do something drastic.  A few days later, he is involved in a fund raiser that allows girls in school to have lunch with boys on whom they have to bid.  As a side note, if you were ever involved in such an event, please comment below because this seems wild to me.  Getting back to the movie, to spite Bryce, Juli gives her money away on another boy on whom nobody is making any offers.  During the subsequent meal, Bryce cannot stop looking at Juli.  Abruptly, he gets up and attempts to kiss her, something for which she has been waiting for years.  What she does not want is it to happen in this manner, so she runs away.  He spends the next couple of days trying to get her to talk to him, but all his attempts go unanswered.  Finally, when things are apparently quiet, she goes into her living room to read.  Before sitting, she notices him outside digging a hole in the yard she worked so hard to rehabilitate.  Richard says he had given Bryce permission to do so.  When Juli goes out there, she finds out that Bryce is planting a sycamore tree.  As such, they finally see each other as they wish and the film ends.

You might think that it would be more fitting for Flipped to conclude with a kiss instead of planting a tree, but I am perfectly fine with it.  You can accuse me of being a square Catholic, but keep in mind that these are barely teenagers.  They also display a maturity beyond their years in realizing they should get to know one another better first.  Another argument to the contrary would be to say that instincts should take over.  Then again, I would say that a thirteen-year-old does not know themselves enough to trust their instincts.  What is better to note is that they are learning, and Juli is especially open to doing so.  In this sense, she gets a wonderful lesson from her dad.  At one point, Richard talks about the benefits of knowing the whole picture rather than focusing on the individual parts.  But what does that mean?  From a Catholic perspective, in a broad way, only God can see the whole picture.  At the same time, it is not too crazy to suggest that we should be happy with being a small part of that whole, and giving everything we can to that whole.  At the same time, we can also see a galaxy of variation and wonder in that small part to which God has assigned us.  This is what is so great about Juli.  After she gets this lesson from her dad, her main purpose for climbing the sycamore tree is to just to marvel at the beauty of God’s creation to which she is privileged on a daily basis.  We are not the universe, nor does it revolve around us.  Yet, God gives us the ability to be present in a moment and to know Him more intimately.  That is all we need.  For our two main characters, though their insights are not religious in nature, they realize that they have been worrying about matters beyond themselves, which helps lead them to each other.

With such a description, it might seem like Flipped is a love story, though it strikes me as odd to say that about a film with the two main characters being adolescents.  What I can say is that it is a film about two people with good characters.  No matter its content, I will take a story with such protagonists any day.