Are you planning a move, and you are worried about how your children will take it? Moving is super stressful for everyone involved, but child psychologists say it can create lots of anxiety in adolescents. If you’re concerned about how your family will handle an upcoming relocation, then perhaps a movie will help. Moving Companies Long Distance has helped us pull together a list of family-friendly movies about other families on the move.
1. Inside Out
In the movie Inside Out, Riley has just moved from Minnesota to San Francisco, and it’s thrown her emotions out of whack. Literally—in her mental world, Riley is guided by Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, and Disgust, all of whom are unsure on how to navigate this new situation. Riley tries to suppress her depression about the move, and as a result, Joy and Sadness both wind up lost inside her mind, struggling to find their way just like Riley is. Ultimately, the three will learn that mourning for the past is necessary to find happiness, and Riley and her parents manage to settle down in their new home.
2. Casper
Kat moves around a lot for her father’s unusual job—he’s a psychologist for ghosts, traveling from one supposedly haunted house to another all over the country. This time, however, they find ghosts, including Casper, a friendly child who would rather smile than scare people. Despite her initial troubles fitting in at school, Kat bonds with her new phantom housemate, and it seems like this time the family will settle down for good. Interestingly, in this one, it is the parent who needs to let go of the past, as father James realizes that his real motivation—finding the ghost of Kat’s mother—was ultimately unnecessary. Warning for a few cases of bad language.
3. Karate Kid
In both versions of the Karate Kid, the protagonist is a boy who moves—across the country in the original, to a new country in the remake. In both, he befriends a pretty girl and winds up the foe of a local bully, but winds up learning to deal with his issues by learning martial arts from his neighbor, a kung fu master. No matter which version you go with, the lesson is clear: moving to a new place can be hard, but you can get through it and even thrive, learning new things about yourself and even experiencing new cultures. Note that the original especially is more of a teen movie, though, with cursing throughout the film.
4. Spirited Away
This anime film, by the renowned Studio Ghibli, is a technicality: protagonist Chihiro is moving with her family, though we never see her new home. Instead, the family accidentally drives into the Spirit World, and Chihiro has to get a job at a magic bathhouse after her parents are transformed into pigs. Nevertheless, the themes of moving are there: Chihiro is in an unfamiliar place, and must slowly learn to trust the new people she meets there, even when they initially seem strange or mean. One person, she meets winds up having a connection to her old home, giving kids the message that the past, and old friends, can stay with you even when your life is changing.
