Family dynamics can often be a complicated, drama-filled web with many different sides to the stories, so it’s a fascinating subject for a documentary. Andrew Garbus digs deep into his personal family troubles with his documentary Everything I Own, dealing with the separation of his parents after 29 years, his own mental health issues, and shooting one final home video as they all move out of his childhood home before it is sold.
Garbus mixes old home videos from a seemingly happier time when he and his brother Matthew were kids, together with the final home video (in 2016) of interviews with his mom and dad (his brother refused to take part in the movie), trying to figure out why the heck they would divorce now. Andrew is having a difficult time, to say the least, coping with the divorce and losing the stability of both a home and family, so he probes his parents in an effort to find out exactly where it went downhill.
Andrew reveals in the film that he places a lot of blame on myself, for the others in the family having to deal with his mental health problems. On camera, we see some rage-filled outbursts from him, and he reveals that when he’s really low, he ponders suicide or doing something outrageous to help get him out of it.
Andrew Garbus sits in his childhood home surrounded by packed U-Haul boxes in Everything I Own.
“…digs deep into his personal family troubles…”
Leland Garbus (dad) is the rock of the family, whom both boys love immensely, while their mother, Claudia, is more erratic and is even seen as evil at times for her anger and perceived lack of empathy. They’ve grown apart over the years, especially after certain people in their lives have passed on, and they think that since both boys are now grown adults, they should be able to handle it.
I went through my own parents’ divorce when I was young, as have roughly half of our population. It’s quite a personal experience that must not be easy to put on film for the world to see. That’s why Matthew didn’t want to participate, besides getting along almost as badly as Cain and Abel (minus the murder, of course).
Each family member (minus Matthew) tells the story from their perspective, while the rawness and honesty of it all makes the Garbus family relatable. You can see the pain in Andrew’s eyes, and want the answers to come in order to ease the pain of the little boy in the old home movies who is still inside of them.
Everything I Own is an interesting examination of loss (both material and emotional), memory, mental health, and of interpersonal relationships that anyone who is interested in psychology should see. The Garbus’s are a Jewish family, but their plight is all too relatable. Even for families who haven’t dealt with separation, who hasn’t had issues of any kind?
Film is meant to be a reflection that shines a light on all sides of life, which this movie certainly does with its honesty, even if it isn’t the happiest of subjects.
"…a reflection that shines a light on all sides of life, which this movie certainly does with its honesty, even if it isn’t the happiest of subjects. "
