Running On Empty - Movie Reflection

This 1988 movie revolves around a young man, Danny, who is brought up by a unique family which they are always on a run due to the parents' act of anti-war bombing of a napalm laboratory. The whole movie is showing the interactions of Danny and his family as well as how Danny is striving for his own identity and freedom in life.

Running on Empty perfectly portrays teenagers' struggles in emerging adult life through the characters, Danny and Lorna. Both of them are graduating from high school and are preparing to apply for college. Like many of the real life cases, their parents are not supportive in the teen's choice of undergraduate courses. In the movie, Lorna's parents are not very keen in Lorna decision of pursuing writing and always hope that she could follow their footstep in music. On the other hand, Danny's parents never thought that Danny would leave them and expected him to follow them on the run. Hence, when both of them apply for further studies, there is conflicts between the children and parents. These two cases are very similar to most of the family conflicts in real life. Parents usually want their child to follow their footstep or pursue something that are more stable in getting an employment instead of being supportive towards their children's passion. This causes so many potential young adults to dim their enthusiasts and study a course they don't really like. Especially in our cultural context, when a teen wants to pursue into the artistic field, most parents would object the idea and are rarely supportive of teens' choice. However, as we grew older, we would start to understand the intention of our parents. From our parents' point of view, they never wanted to hurt their children by blowing out their dreams. Parents are usually afraid that their children might not be able to find a job and support themselves in the future. This is why comparing to the Western context, situations like this are more likely to happen in our context. In the Western countries, even the parents are not keen with their children's decision, they usually would still allow their children to pursue that course because they believe once their children turn into an adult, he or she should bear his/her own responsibilities. Unlike our context, young adults who are already working would still seek support from parents. Therefore, parents would avoid getting into situation like that and force their children in studying a course that have higher chance of getting employed.

Another struggle that is faced by most teenagers are also shown in the movie. According Erik Erikson Psychosocial Development Theory, teenagers falls under the Identity vs Role Confusion stage. In this movie, we can see how Danny is struggling to find his own identity. He began to wonder what would his future holds for him and realizing what he wants to do in his life.
This is also a scene where he acts as a pizza delivery man just to see his grandmother who couldn't recognize him. These shows that he is exploring different aspect on his life to search for a concrete identity.

In the movie, it is also very clearly shown that the love between Lorna and Danny can be listed as romantic love which based on Sternberg Triangular Theory of Love, consists of only passion and intimacy. There is no commitment as towards the end of the movie, Danny is willing to sacrifice his love and run away with his family. He did not commit himself in the relationship. This kind of love is widely common among teenagers and young adults are most are not ready to settle down. Especially when it is a first love, many people still couldn't figure out what they want in their partner and are still exploring and learning about love. As for Danny and Lorna, the intimacy and passion level is obviously high because they share almost everything to each other even Danny's family secret, and have a strong emotional connection.

What brings them together at first was the similarity between both of them. Although they are from a totally different type of family, we can see that Lorna and Danny are both teenagers who are searching for their identity and struggling with the same college problems. Not only so, they study at the same school and share a class together. These shows that what draws them together are actually the proximity and similarity. Based on the Social Attraction Theory, we are more likely to fall in love with people who are similar to us and people who are near to us. This is because it is easier for couples to understand each other, and short distance provides familiarity and convenience.

What I personally like about this movie is that Running On Empty addresses a very important issue of society's perceptions of family. To most of the people, status and wealth signifies happiness in a family. Many admires and gives extra respect to those from the upper class and taking them as a role model. However, little did outsider knows what is within the family. I believe the family context and interactions are much more important than the external status. Just like in the movie, Although the Philip family seems like they have it all (upper-middle class family), the interaction between Lorna and Mr Philip is not as good as it seems. They talk rudely to each other and even as a father, he needs permission to get into his daughter's room. On the other hand, despite the bad condition the Pope family is living in, they have a very strong bond which they stick together through thick and thin. They are very open with each other where they tell their problems and discuss freely. Although at the end, it's Arthur who makes the end decision, he does take in all ideas and opinions. Pope family works as a unit and they understand each other well. Even conflicts and crisis appear, in the end it still brings them together. One example is at first Arthur is against Danny leaving the family and going into college, at the end he understand that his son has no responsibility towards his act of bombing and Danny shouldn't risk his whole life running away. He made the decision of letting him go even it is hard for everyone. As a mother, Annie understand faster than Arthur and risks to see his father to arrange a stable life for Danny. This shows that despite all the emotional damage and risk of never seeing each other again, the Pope family still supports one another and think of the best for each other.

conversation between the Pope family in the video 

In the last scene, when the Pope family let Danny be on his own, Arthur and Annie Pope told Danny to go out there and make a difference and not to let anyone to tell him different shows that the powerful love from parents to their child. No matter where they are or what they do, parents will always love their child and see the best in them. This kind of love is also shown between Annie and his father. Although the conversation was hard at first, her father still agrees to take in Danny as to help Annie. Despite they have not met each other for 14 years and Annie's parents were mad at her, we can still see the love he has for her as a parent and the willingness to do anything for his child.


In life, I feel that no matter what condition our family lives in, what brings the whole family together are the supports, understanding, openness and acceptance. There is no use to have high status or good wealth if the family are not interacting well inside. This is because except our family, there is no one in the world would sacrifice so much and love one unconditionally.


*All pictures and videos shown do not belong to me and can be found in google images or Youtube