Infinitely Polar Bear

Infinitely Polar Bear, a film based on the childhood of writer/director Maya Forbes, presents a biracial family in 1970s Boston that appears to twist conventional family structure and morals: Cam Stuart (Mark Ruffalo) is a combustible househusband who chain-smokes and swears in front of his two prepubescent daughters Amelia (Imogene Wolodarsky, Forbes’ daughter) and Faith (Ashley Aufderheide), who cusses right back.

They live in a rent-controlled apartment cramped with unwashed dishes, upended bicycles, and cigarette smoke, and the girls attend a brain-wasting public school. Meanwhile, their breadwinning mother Maggie (Zoe Saldana) lives 200 miles away in New York getting her MBA. One female neighbor praises them for being “evolved,” while another half-disgusted, half-puzzled character remarks, “Is this something to do with feminism?”

But the Stuarts aren’t driven by liberal ideology—they’re a family struggling to stay together under crippling circumstances. After a series of psychotic breakdowns involving a red Speedo, Cam is institutionalized with manic-depressive disorder while Maggie labors at a low-paying, dead-end job. So when she’s offered an 18-month scholarship to Columbia University, she grasps it as salvation to a better living and education for her girls. Unfortunately, that means leaving them under the responsibility of a man who can barely take care of himself.

“Our dad is totally polar bear,” 8-year-old Faith tells her friends—a verbal garble on “bipolar,” but “polar bear” works in describing Cam. He’s both cuddly bear and raging hulk, fragile yet resolute to be the best dad in his situation. His daughters pick up that resilience; despite their shame and resentment, they fiercely love their father: “The thing about Daddy is that he’s always there.”

Infinitely Polar Bear (rated R for language) is a sweet, empathetic portrait of a family that has to make hard choices. It gently prods at themes of race, class, and gender, but the underlying pulse is the sanctity of family—eccentric and dysfunctional, yes, but still able to reflect love, understanding, and kindness.