Grist for the Mill

1999

48min

Documentary filmmaker Cynthia Wade is trying to get her divorced parents to talk to each other, but that is the last thing they want to do. Nothing ever seems to work out the way Wade hopes it will. At least she has a job (calling out Bingo numbers), a loving family (although her father's new wife is just a few years older than Wade), and a social life (if answering an emergency hotline on a Saturday night counts). So what if her sister gets all of the dates and her father is finally getting the son he always wanted? Wade is armed with her camcorder, and the result is a honest and painfully humorous video diary that captures a changing American family in the 1990s.