What happens after miscarriage

Peggy.

Some movies demand attention, and Something, Anything is one of those movies. It features a small-town real estate agent in Kentucky named Peggy, who has just married when at the beginning of the movie she experiences a miscarriage.

Her miscarriage is the force on which the rest of the movie turns: shortly afterward she leaves her husband, finds God, and gives up material things. Each reversal -- like when Peggy leaves her job to become a librarian -- is clearly portrayed as a rejection of society, and an embrace of "otherness," and her family and friends do not understand her choices. The movie, however, celebrates these changes as necessary to Peggy's enlightenment.

When Peggy tries to find the brother of an old high school classmate, who has since become a monk, it feel like a natural extension of Peggy's search for herself, and who she really is.

Something, Anything becomes slowly transfixing as it meditates on the questions of who are we, and why are we here? It never answers definitively whether they are to be found in God, or in you. For Peggy, it appears not to matter so much what the answer is, as long as she is asking the question.

When she finally finds her monk, their reunion is the end of an ellipsis, answering a question she never thought to ask, or asked years ago and then forgot. It’s surprising while still being utterly grounded in normalcy. I have never seen anything quite like it.

I heartily recommend watching Something, Anything, both as a sensitive treatment of the aftermath of a crisis, and as a tale that acknowledges people's flaws even as – especially as – they are asking for forgiveness.

Something, Anything was released in 2014. It is available to screen on Netflix.