The Secret of NIMH

74Worth an evening.

A sick child, a plow coming, and a mother who is not a warrior doing the hard thing.

The review

Her son is sick, the house sits in the path of the plow, and she is not a warrior. The film does not fix that by handing her a battle the audience can cheer. She has to move the house. The rats she asks were made intelligent in a laboratory, so the help is real and also someone else's old harm.

That is the courage worth showing a child: one hard thing, done by a mother who would miss that boy. No crown attached. A deadline and a home. If they are old enough for danger without a punchline, start here. You leave thinking about what has to be shifted before the machine arrives, not about who won a fight.

Journal

Keep The Secret of NIMH in the record.

No house has filed a sentence for this yet.

Live Historic number 74. Yours can differ.

The glance

Republic is the thin one.

Does anyone owe a neighbor, a law, or a town — or is every person out for themselves?

This phone is set for a grown person, just me. Change the ages.

The eight

6
Industry
Moving the house before the plow is the work that matters.
9
Household
A sick son and the house are the whole reason she acts.
7
Piety
She asks for help and still has to do the hard thing herself.
9
Courage
The courage is a mother who is not a warrior, doing one hard thing.
5
Republic
The plow is coming whether the field cares about her child.
7
Temperance
She wants the house saved, not a bigger fight to star in.
8
Truth
The sickness and the plow are both real, with no comforting dodge.
8
Stewardship
She is trying to leave a house standing after the machine.

Where to watch

Finding the page.

Live Historic · The Secret of NIMH · 74IMDb

Live HistoricSee what matters.

Film · Paramount · 2016

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Arrival

74Worth an evening.

Understanding is the work. She says yes to a child she will lose. That yes is the film.

The review

Louise's profession is the unfashionable one: sit with a sentence until it means what the speaker meant, not what you feared. The generals want a weapon. The film thinks a grammar is more dangerous and more useful than a weapon, because a grammar changes what you are able to choose. When she sees the whole of her life with her daughter, including the end, she does not flinch into a safer timeline.

Adults, and teenagers who can be quiet. This is one of the few popular films of the decade that treats knowledge as a moral act. Watch it when the house is tempted to answer before it has understood.