I’m crying because i’m sappy

SHERWOOD KIRALY

Movie award season has begun and I was sounding off to someone about

how emotionally powerful “Ray” and “Finding Neverland” are when I

realized that I must disqualify myself from having an opinion. I’ve

developed a weakness.

In the anime films Katie watches now and then, the teenage

characters have huge liquid eyes, which often overflow with tears.

They’re kids; they’re emotional. And they’ve got nothing on me.

When I was a boy I cried only when I hurt myself. My dad didn’t

even cry when he hurt himself; he spoke freely, but he didn’t cry. My

mother, however, would occasionally weep at odd times, upbeat times

-- birthdays, or if I did something right. When asked why she was

crying, she would say it was because she was happy -- a

head-scratcher for me at the time.

Now, some years later, my recommendation of “Finding Neverland” is

practically worthless because I’ve become such a red-eyed wienie that

my taste can no longer be trusted.

I was pitiful enough at “Ray,” at the end of which I got the

serious gulps.

But at “Finding Neverland” I was toweling off throughout the

second half, wiping my eyes with my popcorn napkin, which was

bringing salt to salt. I may not have been alone; during the credit

crawls I heard other noses being blown, but I was stumbling for the

exit by then, exhausted by the effort I’d made to hide my condition

from my daughter.

In my 20s I was a hard-nosed, two-fisted movie viewer, not the

kind to collapse every time the music comes up. Oh, I was vulnerable

to the classics -- “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Affair to Remember” --

the ones that just eat everyone alive. But it took more than a sad

look and a minor crescendo to get a teardrop out of me.

The turning point, I believe, was fatherhood. One night shortly

after my son was born I was horrified to find myself choking up while

watching a childbirth scene on “Happy Days.”

I pulled myself together afterward, and over the years I’ve stayed

fairly strong during sitcoms, but at the movies nowadays I seem to

fall apart indiscriminately, crying when it’s sad, crying harder when

it’s happy. My most egregious display during “Neverland” occurred at

an uplifting moment. There’s a scene in the London theater, after the

opening of “Peter Pan,” where the kid says -- well, I won’t spoil it.

You may want to embarrass yourself in public too.

So when I say “Finding Neverland” is an elegant, classy

tear-jerker, I have to add that my tears aren’t hard to jerk. A week

after seeing it I got a lump in my throat at the end of “Polar

Express.” High school musicals have me surreptitiously flicking at my

eyelids. I’m clearly becoming someone who will break down at a kind

word or a well-cooked meal. I have become, in this regard and at this

late date, my mother.

Oddly enough, though, I find I no longer cry when I hurt myself.

When I stub my toe I sound a lot like Dad.