Archives July 2023

Fall is pretty much here, and while some mark the season with apple-picking, hot cider, and various other hallmarks of #ChristianGirlAutumn, others prefer to spend it exactly the way we spent summer: parked on the couch, watching our favorite cozy movies on repeat. Whether you’re looking to have your faith in love restored by Harrison Ford, or you’re in need of some witticism from Robin Williams that will absolutely make you weep, our list covers fall’s must-see movies.

Crack your windows open for that cool, crisp air and get the tea kettle ready, because below are 20 of the best fall movies—from stories actually set in the fall, to films that just encompass or represent fall in some way—to get you through to December.

Autumn in New York (2000)

I mean…how could I not include this one? Title aside, this Winona Ryder tearjerker features many of the things I most associate with fall, including Central Park, small museums, and a woman dressed up as Emily Dickinson. We love to see it (and cry at it)! —Emma Specter

Coco (2017)

There is no one untouched by crises of mental health. And yet, when you or someone you love is struggling, it can often feel like you’re alone in the dark, searching for a light. In honor of World Mental Health Day, we are publishing a series of essays, starting today and running through the weekend, that tackle this topic through a personal lens. We hope these essays offer insight into the many ways that people struggle, and how they can come out the other side with dignity and grace.

My dentist recently told me that my gums were healthy. An unremarkable observation to most people but one that, for me, caused a surge of relief and joy. When I left her office, I wanted to text someone about what she’d said before realizing that even my best friends would only be able to pretend to care all that much about my gums.

Nine years ago, when I was 27, a dentist told me the bone levels on the lower left-hand side of my mouth had already depleted to the levels typical of a 50-year-old, due to chronic inflammation and disease. “Lifestyle factors” were most likely to blame, I was told. The lifestyle in question? Well, it consisted of sick leave from my office job, lying on a mattress on the floor of my rented bedroom in south east London (an flatpack bed frame was still in its unopened box in the corner) for days at a time, occasionally getting up to smoke a badly assembled roll-your-own cigarette or, when it was very bad, to drink my housemate’s wine in the fridge straight from the bottle before passing out in the same dank squalid spot where I’d spent the past week. No, I didn’t brush my teeth often enough. I became severely vitamin D deficient too. It’s still on my medical record. Severe depression, gender identity issues, vitamin D deficiency. It’s giving vampire, as the Tik Tok kids say.

To have survived a major depression is to be forever haunted thereafter. I’m now many years past the last episode but all it takes is a single bad day, perhaps due to hormones, or low mood in the coldest depths of January, for me to fear I am being dragged back by my ankles. Depression reveals one’s own brain to be a double agent, an enemy within. How do you ever fully make peace with it again? Like a marriage after infidelity, the trust may never be restored. Would I survive another round?

There is no one untouched by crises of mental health. And yet, when you or someone you love is going through it, it can often feel like you’re alone in the dark, searching for a light. In honor of World Mental Health Day, we are publishing a series of essays, starting today and running through the weekend, that tackle this topic through a personal lens. We hope these essays offer a little insight into the many ways that people struggle, and how they can come out the other side with dignity and grace.

I’m sitting alone on the couch, held in place by a weighted blanket my husband’s grandmother gave us. The living room is dark except for the light coming from the TV. An episode of X-Files is playing at a low volume.

My sister has been staying with us for a week this time.

Perhaps she comes to me when she’s in trouble because I’m older. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have to hide who she is when she’s around me. I don’t judge her when she spends long hours asleep. I don’t try to rationalize her paranoia or challenge the delusions that come from a combination of her schizoaffective disorder and drug use. Then again, it could be that my guest bedroom is a lot better than the rooms she’s stayed in at psychiatric hospitals and drug rehab centers.

The bottom of her pajama pants had been folded underneath her feet when she’d shuffled to bed hours earlier. But I suspect she is still awake. Even with 15 feet and a wall between us, I can sense her insomnia like I sense my own. The meds she takes to quiet her mind don’t always work. (Approximately one-third of patients diagnosed with a major depressive disorder are categorized as treatment-resistant, defined in resources offered by Johns Hopkins as “lingering depression symptoms in patients who have taken multiple antidepressants or antidepressant classes.”)

I fill a small glass with tap water and tip-toe to the end of the hallway. I knock lightly on the door. I don’t wait for a response before I push the door in slowly, a manifestation of my role as big sister, always taking charge and professing that I know how to fix things.

Last month, former president and 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump surprised many by calling for universal coverage of IVF treatment, albeit with no specific plan. The move was likely part of an attempt to win over undecided voters who had been put off by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022.

You might be taken aback to see Trump even vaguely associating himself with the push to help families struggling to conceive. (Trump has proudly claimed credit for installing the Supreme Court justices who formed the majority in the decision that overturned Roe—a move that has had numerous ramifications, not just for abortion but also for fertility treatments like IVF.) Let me assure you that his priority was not, and never has been, the health, safety, or reproductive agency of women. “We want more babies, to put it nicely,” Trump said at an August event in Michigan.

If you need more tangible evidence of the GOP’s stance on reproductive freedoms, look no further than the Senate, where Republicans blocked a Democratic bill to provide a nationwide right to IVF treatments on Tuesday. This marks Senate Democrats’ second attempt at passing the bill, which is known as the Right to IVF Act and was sponsored by Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth (who used the fertility treatment to conceive her children). Republican senators used their own cynical spin to justify their position: “This is simply an attempt by Democrats to try and create a political issue where there isn’t one,” South Dakota senator John Thune told reporters on Tuesday.

Try telling that to the many people whose hope for a child through IVF has been stymied by the chilling effect of the overturning of Roe. Watching Republicans try to score points off IVF discourse while increasingly passing legislation that creates medical obstacles makes me think of that Maya Angelou quote: “When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” Maybe it’s time for all of us to believe who GOP leaders like Trump have shown us that they are—and focus our energy on electing politicians who actually support IVF as the crucial part of full-scale reproductive autonomy that it objectively is.