Parents As People / Live-Action Films

• The parents in the documentary Abducted in Plain Sight are so trusting, so naive and so concerned with their own wants and needs it leads to unspeakable tragedy for their eldest daughter.
• Back to the Future: In 1985, Marty McFly doesn't get along with his parents. His father George is a meek pushover, and his mother Lorraine is an overprotective killjoy and Lady Drunk, and they don't seem to think much about each other, anymore. However, when he's in 1955, when they were his age, he's surprised to see that George was a passionate writer with several sci-fi stories that he hasn't shared due to fear of rejection, and Lorraine was a free-spirited teen that openly smoked and drank at a young age. With these newfound perspectives, he teaches George to stand up for himself and share his stories and Lorraine that she shouldn't drink or smoke. Before leaving them, he tells them that "it's been... educational", and when he makes it back to 1985, he finds that George is a successful and assertive writer, and Lorraine is healthier and more open-minded about the McFly's children's personal lives.
• In Before Midnight, Jesse and Celine are shown as parents who try very hard and love their kids to bits but ultimately are flawed and imperfect at being parents. Celine later confesses how ashamed she was of being clueless as the mom of their daughters and making mistakes and how she felt she was supposed to be instinctual and a natural at this parenting thing. Also, Jesse totally steals a half-eaten apple from his sleeping daughter!
• Brought up in the film Home for Christmas, where Julie Bedford (Linda Hamilton) has trouble rebuilding her life after her divorce. When the divorce requires her to move into a smaller flat and her daughter Andie changes schools, Andie is initially angry at her mother for forcing all these changes on her, but eventually accepts that her mother is doing her best in a difficult situation and the only one at fault is her father for the divorce.
• An early (and light-hearted) example in the 1948 A Date with Judy starring Jane Powell, a young Elizabeth Taylor, and Robert Stack has the protagonist and her best friend having these in their fathers — Judy's father being a stodgy man set in his ways who she suspects is undergoing a scary midlife crisis and affair (he's really receiving dance lessons from Carmen Miranda) and Liz Taylor's character has a wealthy father who is a workaholic whose kids use their butler as a father figure. The girls lament to each other in one scene that "parents are a lot of work" and then leads to a musical scene where Judy is reading a book titled Are Parents People?
• DC Extended Universe:
  • The Kents as they appear in Man of Steel and later, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, unlike most depictions of Clark's adoptive parents who tend to have perfectly instilled wisdom; here they admit that they are making up much of what they do as it comes since neither of them was prepared for accidentally adopting an alien child with immense power.
  • Billy's mother in SHAZAM! (2019). His memory of her showed an ideal if not perfect mom. But once he reunited her after ten years, Billy was faced with the truth that she was a flawed single parent trying to raise a child on her own with no support and that she knowingly abandoned him so she could have a better life.
  • In Zack Snyder's Justice League, Victor's father Silas is Married to the Job to the detriment of his son's life and it's strongly implied he never went to any of Victor's football games to support him and Victor just wanted his father's approval. After Victor's fateful car accident, Silas managed to save him using a Mother Box but Victor had nothing but resentment towards his father as Victor felt his father transformed him into a monster.
  • The original Ratcatcher in The Suicide Squad. His drug addiction was so bad that he and Cleo lived on the streets and used their rats to steal from people, and he eventually died of an overdose. Despite this he was clearly a very loving father, providing some of the most poignant scenes in the film. Cleo comments that while she knows he was flawed, she still wishes that Robert/Bloodsport had grown up with someone like him rather than his own horrible father. And of course, Robert himself takes the job to help his daughter... despite their one scene together largely consisting of them screaming "FUCK YOU!" at each other.
• In The Descendants, Matt is a workaholic who struggles to connect with his two daughters after his wife goes into a coma. His wife Elizabeth is a self-absorbed adrenaline junkie who cheated on her husband and her refusal to admit her affair when her oldest daughter caught her only caused a lot of problems for said daughter.
• Steven Spielberg downright said that The Fabelmans is him recalling the moments where mom and dad were seen "not as parents but as real people" by focusing on their actions and the eventual collapse of their marriage.
• Five Nights at Freddy's (2023): Mike struggles with trauma from his past, is struggling to pay bills to the point of facing eviction, and has to deal with an aunt who wants to become Abby's primary guardian just for the check that she would get every month. In spite of all this, he does the best he can as Abby's caretaker; that's what motivated him to take the job at Fazbear's in the first place.
• In Girl Most Likely, Annette Benning's character is faced with an adult daughter who has off-and-on suicidal ideations. Annette Benning responds by saying she has no idea what to do with her to not make things worse.
• James Reid from The Green Hornet is a very good example. He was a well-renowned publisher, a strong believer in a free press which costs him his life at the hands of the corrupt DA Scanlon, and beloved by his employees. He was also a widower with a young son who had problems in school. Mr. Reid's response was to treat him with contempt, even in a case of self-defense. The result was a young, lazy playboy with no respect for any of the values James preaches. Over the course of the movie, however, Britt comes to learn more about what his father believed in, and while still thinking he was a lousy dad, he was still a respectable human being, enough to put the head back on his statue.
• Both of Kevin's parents in Home Alone are this.
  • Due to the holiday stress, Kate is ignorant and unsympathetic to Kevin's problems and her attempt to discipline Kevin when he acts out backfires and leads to Parting-Words Regret. However once she realizes he was left behind, she would move heaven and earth to get back home to him.
  • While Peter handles Kevin better than Kate, choosing to calmly reason and discipline Kevin if he continues to misbehave, he too accidentally neglects Kevin in the chaos of trying to catch their flight. Although he decides to stay with their other children while Kate flies back to Chicago, he is no less worried about Kevin than Kate and a Deleted Scene shows Peter unable to sleep in Paris.
• In the earlier Hulk film, General Ross wanted to be a part of Betty's life but couldn't because of his work. He also disapproved of her relationship with Bruce, but only because he knew about Bruce's abusive parents and wanted to keep her safe. By the end of the film, Betty's house, phone, and computer are being monitored in case Bruce ever attempts to contact her, but the two of them make an effort to stay on good terms.
• Joan Carlyle in Ice Princess. She clearly loves Casey very much, and she reveals that she feels guilty about not being rich enough to give Casey the life she wanted to, even though they have a comfortable home and Casey is perfectly content with their lifestyle. However, she also has a very specific plan for Casey's life and doesn’t take her daughter's feelings on it into consideration, and is shown to be just as controlling as Tina Harwood is to her own daughter, just in a different way. Joan pushes Casey to pursue a career in science rather than her passion for figure skating because “there’s no shelf life on your mind”, while most pro athletes are done by their thirties. It’s also shown that she has some unresolved jealousy issues towards pretty or “glamorous” women from her school days so she is reflexively against Casey doing anything stereotypically feminine even if it makes her happy. Joan comes around at the end of the movie, but is still a little overbearing, arguing with Casey's coach and insisting she take college classes part-time while competing.
• The reason Cobb in Inception took Saito's job was so he could return to America to see his children. Mal was like this too, but after being unable to tell reality from dreaming, she committed suicide, believing herself in a dream, so she could be with her children again, not realizing she was already in the real world. Or was she?
• The Incredible Melting Man. Despite being a source of comic relief, Judy's mother is having an affair with a man she's not married to. They joke and snark around with each other in a loving way. Even for The '70s, it was unusual to depict older unmarried couples having an active sex life.
• Jumanji:
  • Alan's father Sam may appear aloof and strict to his son but he clearly loves Alan and spends the rest of his life trying to find him after he disappeared and Sam would eventually die of grief.
  • Nora is having a hard time raising her niece and nephew after they lost their parents. She does care for them and is very concerned about them when she realized they are in danger but she doesn't have an idea how to raise two troubled children.
• Juno uses this Trope to a degree. The title character's parents are divorced, leaving her with her Dad, step-mom, and half-sister. She hasn't seen her mom in years, only communicating through letters, and her Dad and stepmom don't exactly react too horrified or shocked when they hear she's pregnant, aside from Dad proclaiming an intent to punch the boy who did it in the balls. At the same time, Juno's stepmom sticks up for her in the doctor's office when an x-ray tech makes a passing insult, and when she's feeling doubtful about a potentially serious relationship, her Dad is there to offer some good advice (albeit admitting that as a divorcee, he isn't the best person to give it).
• Juliana: Juliana's mother is genuinely loving even if she's as sexist as everyone else —making her help with the chores while leaving Juliana's younger brother alone— and is tied by societal expectations to the point that she'd be shunned by their community if she were to divorce her abusive husband. Juliana's mother is worried sick and mad when she runs away but is relieved and happy to see her daughter doing better for herself. She recognizes her instantly even when she's pretending to be a boy.
• Zach and Gray's parents in Jurassic World are this. They send their children on a vacation without them to see their aunt and enjoy themselves, while they quietly arrange for a divorce, trying to hide the fact from their children.
• King George V in The King's Speech is strict and harsh to his younger son Albert who has a speech impediment, especially when he was younger when George was a bit of a Jerkass towards him. But because his oldest son is shirking his duties, he knows that Albert may eventually have to take over his duties as a king (whether Albert wants it or not) and he is trying, in his own way, to fix Albert's stuttering. On his deathbed, he does approve of Albert as king but he never actually told Albert.
• Difficulty in motherhood is the central theme of The Lost Daughter. The film slowly reveals Leda's struggles in raising her daughters. Her (now ex-)husband evidently left the bulk of the raising to her, a grad student, who slowly became more and more frazzled and frustrated with them. Eventually it became too much and she abandoned them for three years to have an affair with another professor. In the present day, the precise relationship she has with them is unclear, and she's conflicted over the choices she made. As she puts it, she's very selfish.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • General Ross from The Incredible Hulk (2008) has a few moments where he seems to care about his daughter Betty but most of his life and time is devoted to capturing the Hulk. In fact, in his determination to subdue the Hulk, his actions nearly got Betty killed at one point. Psychiatrist Dr Samson points out to him how he was lying when he said Betty's safety was his main concern.
    Dr Samson: "I never knew why she never talked about you… I do now."
  • Thor, Thor: The Dark World and Thor: Ragnarok: Odin's parental skills leave a great deal to be desired and caused many of the problems and insecurities associated with Thor and Loki, which in turn snowballed into major conflicts such as Loki's invasion of Earth. That being said Odin loves both of his sons deeply and in his last moments made sure to tell them this in spite of everything Loki had done.
  • Ant-Man:
    • The aging Hank Pym had a strained relationship with his daughter Hope for not telling her the details of her mother's death. Because of this, Hope defected to Darren Cross when he took over Pym Industries until she found out Cross is not a nice man. Despite returning to her father, she's still angry at him particularly for choosing a con man, Scott Lang, to take the Ant-Man mantle instead of her. Then it turns out that Hank is just trying to protect her because he doesn't want her to end like her mother who made a Heroic Sacrifice during their mission. In the end, they made up and Hank decided to let Hope inherit The Wasp mantle from her mother.
    • Scott Lang is an ex-con struggling to find work so he can help in taking care of his daughter, Cassie. Though Cassie loves him, his ex-wife thought that Scott is a very irresponsible parent.
  • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2: By his own admission, Yondu Udonta wasn't the best parental figure to a young Peter Quill: as a Ravager, one who had participated and/or bore witness to much of the darkness of the underbelly of the intergalactic community, he was hardly someone that should aspire to fatherhood. He could be harsh and he could be cruel at times. But when it came down to it, he loved Peter, and raised him that way so he could survive even without Yondu by his side, against any enemies that might come his way — such as Peter's biological father. As final proof of his love, he dies saving Peter's life, an act that makes Peter realize that Yondu, for all his faults, was the father he had been searching for all his life.
    Yondu: I'm sorry I didn't do none of it right, but I'm damn lucky you're my boy.
  • Black Panther (2018): T'Chaka was a good father to T'Challa, but far from a perfect person. This just makes it harder when T'Challa is confronted with the aftermath of his father's actions, such as orphaning and abandoning his cousin. However, despite both this and denouncing his father's traditionalism, T'Challa never stopped loving him, as seen when he proudly declares himself "son of T'Chaka" in The Stinger of his solo film.
  • Howard Stark is eventually revealed to be this. While he definitely could have done a better job as a father, Avengers: Endgame shows that at the end of the day, he did love Tony, even if he was terrible at showing it. When Tony travels back in time and runs into a young Howard, Howard reveals that he is overjoyed to be a father but also terrified that his child would end up like him and just plain doesn't know how to raise a child. It is this open conversation about the fear of failing children that allows Tony, who is now a father himself, to finally accept his father truly cared for him in his own way.
• Regina's stepmother in Mean Girls. She is so desperate to be the "cool mom" to her stepdaughter that she effectively spoils Regina rotten, letting her get away with anything, and contributes heavily to Regina's lack of respect for other people.
• MonsterVerse:
  • In Godzilla (2014), Joe Brody spent fifteen years obsessed with trying to discover the truth about his wife's death and as a result, was a less-than-stellar parent to his estranged son Ford.
  • Mark Russell. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), he was too much of a jerk to practically everyone around him except his ex-wife Emma and daughter Madison to count for this trope (to be fair, he was grieving the death of his son and Madison’s younger brother Andrew), but in Godzilla vs. Kong, he's become a case of this after gaining custody of Madison as her sole surviving parent. Although he really does care a lot about his daughter and thinks he's doing what's best for her, he's a bit of a Fantasy-Forbidding Father and My Beloved Smother who wants her to stay out of Titan issues so he doesn't have to worry about her life, and his parenting involves projecting his own idea of what would be an ideal childhood (sending her to public school and ignoring her continuous complaints about how miserable she is there when she's spent most of her life before this point being homeschooled by her mother and Monarch colleagues) instead of actually making any attempt to understand her differences from him.
• Over the Edge: The parents of New Grenada pretty much built not only their lives but their town around their lives and careers. Their children, left in a town without much to do, were driven to delinquency, and the solutions their parents proposed only made things much worse.
• Herc Hansen from Pacific Rim is a good man and is trying hard to be a good father but he and his son Chuck suffer from poor communication and trauma from when Herc had the Sadistic Choice of either saving his son or wife during a Kaiju attack. Chuck is implied to have Survivor's Guilt in regards to his father saving him over his mother and resents Herc as a result.
• Harry Goodman in Pokémon Detective Pikachu by all accounts is a decent and kind man, albeit flawed, but is a distant father to Tim who spent more time with his work and Pokemon than with his son, especially after the untimely death of his wife. However, he made attempts to patch things up and reach out to Tim, only that Tim was so hurt by his earlier absence that he had refused to meet with Harry or give him a chance. It wasn't until after Harry seemingly died and he was restored to his own body, that both Tim and Harry reconciled.
• Rags: Kadee's father is also the CEO of Majesty Records, meaning that while he's a loving father who genuinely wants his daughter to succeed and be happy, he's also constantly busy, focused on the business side of her music, and eventually has to learn that she needs him to act more like a father than a manager.
• In the stupid Mexican kids' movie Santa Claus, presented as a Christmas episode of MST3K, one of the children Santa visits is a little boy whose socialite parents literally needed Santa to drug them in order for them to remember that they have a kid.
• In Searching, David is a loving father but when his wife Pamela died, he's too consumed by his own grief to realize that his daughter is having difficulty coping too, and both become distant. All of this hinders his search to find Margot when she goes missing because David knows so little about her and he has to go through her social media to find answers.
• The Secret Garden:
  • Mary's parents are hopelessly self-absorbed people who accidentally abandon their daughter during an earthquake because they forgot about her.
  • For that matter, Uncle Archibald would also count. He loves his son and sees to it that he has the best care, but is so driven to grief over his wife Lillias's death and the fear that Colin inherited his hunchback condition that he is almost never home at all. This is also the case when he becomes Mary's guardian. He sees her exactly once before the end of the story, but when he meets her, he makes sure that she has everything she needs to be well looked after.
• The Squid and the Whale: Joan and Bernard aren't the most attentive parents because they're going through a lot in their own lives, which the film gives attention to. Joan has an active dating life, and is a rising literary star, while Bernard is struggling with his writing career and seems to be having a mid-life crisis of identity.
• Kylo Ren/Ben Solo in Star Wars' The Force Awakens is implied to have a troubled relationship with his parents. Leia Organa and Han Solo are seen by the rest of the galaxy as heroes but Kylo has a hard time reconciling that his parents are only human. The fact his parents also ship him off to his uncle for training made Kylo feel abandoned and neglected.
  • In The Last Jedi, Luke has lost his faith in the Jedi and the Force in general after he couldn’t prevent Kylo Ren from falling to the Dark Side, feeling he failed as a teacher, uncle, and Parental Substitute. Yoda helps him recover by bringing up this trope; he points out that, for all their wisdom and strength, the Jedi Masters (himself included) were always just people, as capable of failing as anyone else. He notes that the true goal of any parent or teacher is to help their child/pupil overcome such failures and become better people... a path that Luke has set Rey on via his teachings, however flawed they were.
• Titanic (1997): Ruth Bukater is portrayed this way. She does care about Rose, but her obsession with maintaining her class and status means she neglects Rose's emotional health by forcing her to marry a rich asshole. Ruth does feel horrible when she thinks her daughter died.
• Maisie's biological parents in the modern adaptation of What Maisie Knew. The father, though self-absorbed, is implied to feel seriously insecure about his paternal capabilities. Her equally self-absorbed mother tries to lavish Maisie with as much affection as she could but eventually pulls an I Want My Beloved to Be Happy and allows Maisie to stay with her kind stepparents.

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