In King of California, Michael Douglas plays Charlie, a man just released from a mental institution who sets out to find the gold of a 17th century priest.  His daughter, Miranda (played by Evan Rachel Wood) is taken along for the ride, much to her chagrin most of the time.

Charlie is both aggravating and endearing, and I spent most of the movie not being sure how I felt about Charlie and his “unusual” parenting style while feeling for Miranda and her plight of feeling “trapped” by caring for her apparently unstable father.  By the end of the film, I found myself rooting for both as they dig their way through the floor of their local Costco looking for the treasure. “They have everything here!” exclaims her father in a wonderfully ironic statement.  (In a particularly funny scene, Charlie convinces a confused employee that the surveying equipment he brought into the store is in fact a Costco product that he is trying out in the store.)  It’s a great film about the complicated relationship that can often exist between parents and their children around who children hope their parents are.  Available in October from the Spiritual Cinema Circle.