Institute History
Description
The year is 1978, and the Stuart family is struggling to hold it together. Cameron, a bipolar father, has had a nervous breakdown that leaves him unemployable, and Maggie, a hardworking mother, can’t quite make ends meet. Despite Cameron’s aristocratic pedigree and the couple’s top-notch education, they’re broke. When Maggie decides to accept a scholarship to pursue her MBA in New York, she must leave her daughters, Faith and Amelia, in Boston with their now-somewhat-convalesced father. So begins an untamed, unpredictable, 18-month experiment as eccentric, exuberant Cameron takes over primary parenting of his precocious, sensitive little girls.
Inspired by writer/director Maya Forbes’s childhood, Infinitely Polar Bear lovingly and honestly portrays the pain and frustration of being raised by a father incapable of managing adult responsibilities and explores the gifts inherent in not being sheltered from that reality. With perfect period detail, and moving and humorous performances all around, this bittersweet, transcendent comedy reveals how impasses can be tolerated and imperfect circumstances transformed when they’re met with possibility, creativity, and fierce love.