The film follows Ben Cash, a widower, and father of six. Ben and his late wife Leslie don’t believe in the practices of western society, so they decide to move out into the wilderness of Washinton state to raise their children. The kids are taught how to survive on the land and receive extremely high-level homeschooling. Although all the children are extremely brilliant and resourceful, the one thing they never learned is how to interact with people in the “real world”. Leslie’s funeral, hosted by her family in Arizona requires the family to leave their paradise and enter the outside world, where the children and Ben are truly tested.
Ben’s choice to raise his children in a non-traditional way is heavily criticized by those they encounter that lead a more traditional American lifestyle. They treat Ben and the kids as the Other, they think of them and their beliefs as dangerous, as though they are wild animals for choosing to live away from society. Ben raises his children to be extremely anti-capitalist, he believes Western society to be fascist and he hates corporate America. In a sense, all these things make up the One, and because Ben and the kids disagree with all of it, they are then made the Other, looked at as inferior and as outcasts. During the family’s journey, Ben and the kids stay with Leslie’s sister, Harper, for a night. The kids get to meet their aunt and uncle and their cousins who live a very different life than they do. At the house, Harper criticizes Ben, she tells him the kids shouldn’t be living like this and that he is raising them wrong. She tells Ben the kids need to go to a real school and that they are not getting a good education. Ben calls down Harper’s teenage son, as well as his 8-year-old daughter, and asks each of them what the Bill of Rights is. The teenager has no idea, but Ben’s 8 year old is able to recite the amendments and describe them in her own words. This scene shows that living a non-traditional lifestyle does not make you inferior to those who live a “normal” life, but in fact, it can make you stronger than them in some ways. I think the lesson that can be learned from the film is that you never have to conform and that there is strength in non-conformity. Ben and his children do not conform to the normal practices and beliefs of most Americans, for this they are ridiculed and othered, seen as inferior. However, Ben and the kids are healthier, smarter, kinder, and more knowledgeable than those who do conform to the rules created by the One. Showing that a different lifestyle does not deserve to be put down, but instead should be celebrated.
