By DEITRA WEDD, Staff Writer
The Boss Baby is a very weird take on sibling rivalry. In this movie babies secretly come from a baby factory where they are tested to show if they should be sent to live with a family or to work as a boss baby.
Tim is a seven-year-old with a strong imagination, and as an only child he is used to having all his parent’s attention and love for himself. When Boss Baby shows up at Tim’s home carrying a brief case Tim is unprepared to share his parents.
A rivalry immediately starts between the two, until Tim realizes Boss Baby is a spy on a mission, and if the mission is completed Tim will never have to see Boss Baby again. The two siblings set out on a journey together to complete the mission so that they no longer have to be siblings.
Just as the take on sibling rivalry is a bit weird, the concept of this story was a little strange at first as well. Even looking back on it now it was still a strange story. However, some of the quotes used throughout the movie were quite enjoyable and memorable. Some of the quotes that I found enjoyable were very humorous, while some of the other ones were about lessons that each of us should learn.
The symbolism used throughout the movie was done in a way that it was easy to spot the symbolic value and what exactly the symbol meant. One such symbol is the talking baby.
While at first the baby with the adult like qualities was just a strange idea, later in the movie it’s easy to see how the talking baby was being used as a symbol. Boss Baby symbolizes how an only child might think of their new sibling.
A new baby is in the house constantly screaming and crying indicating to the parents that it needs something done in return for some silence. In this way, the movie is comparing a crying baby to a demanding boss.
By comparing the two it helps show how a child who’s always gotten attention might feel when they are suddenly denied the very thing they’ve always gotten. By “bossing” the parents around, the newborn may be seen through the child’s eyes as getting all the attention, just as Tim did in the movie.
Another symbol was the special desk and the toilet. These were used as symbols of the goals that one might think will bring pleasure once accomplished, and the inanimate objects thought to bring happiness once owned.
The lesson to learn from the desk scene in the movie is that as humans we can be blind to what can truly makes us happy. If someone’s never had something that truly makes them happy, it’s difficult to see what will. As Boss Baby said in the movie, “You can’t miss what you never had.” So it’s important to be open to the type of happiness that comes from animate objects.
Overall this was actually a really good movie, a little strange at first, but once you’re able to look past that it becomes a cute movie with plenty of important life lessons that each and every one of us should learn.