There’s beauty to Chasing Happiness that my 13-year-old self wouldn’t have been able to grasp. I don’t think even my crushed-over-their-breakup 17-year-old self could grasp it. Maybe, like Chasing Happiness suggests, you just have to go a certain way and develop on your own before you can see certain things.
Just like a lot of women my age, the Jonas Brothers were a big part of my life at a certain point. It wasn’t something I followed on my own; it’s very likely that I wouldn’t have cared for them at all if it wasn’t for my little sister. Nonetheless, she was hooked the moment she was introduced to their music (to the point I scoured half the world to find a copy of Be Mine), and admittedly, I fell in love, too. We’d hang out in the living room, singing out loud as we played Tonight, Fly With Me or Paranoid (the clips Disney Channel had here) over and over and over again on telly. It was… magical.
When the trio broke up we weren’t really surprised (it followed two years in which they mostly went on their own separate ways) but we were crushed. Much like, well, a lot of other girls around the world. A massive part of our childhood was, in a sense, over.
We’ve moved on with our lives. We became invested in other things. Like the Brothers, we grew up.
And then out of the blue we wake up to a social media reality of “the Jonas Brothers’ new single comes out on Friday!”
Wait what?
It’s kind of amazing to see an entire generation of women turning back into their teenage selves in an instant. And I’m okay with that. But if I’m being honest, that description isn’t entirely accurate. Because just like the brothers, we’ve all grown up, and I think most of us are coming back to that familiar Jonas Brothers Fanbase place in a slightly different, maturer way.
I think part of why Chasing Happiness is such a wonderful piece of filmmaking is because of how the journey the brothers went through resonates with all of us, really. I particularly relate to their journey as siblings and their attempts to find their own identities; as anyone who’s ever been close to their siblings would tell you, it’s a damn difficult thing to do. But the truth is, each of us has to find their own way in the world. And it’s only when you find who you are that you can have real, deep, meaningful relationships. Yes, even with your siblings.
See, that’s why I said my younger self wouldn’t have been able to grasp the beauty of Chasing Happiness. There’s something about that documentary that makes it almost too raw to process if you’re too young for it; there are just certain points of life that you have to go through before you can fully understand it. Even the first part of the documentary, which goes back to the beginning, seems to bring something new to the table. A lot of the stories we’ve heard before, but now there’s a new depth of emotion, a new level of realisation of how it affected them. There’s a maturer, more experienced, more open perspective that we couldn’t get back in the day, and in all honesty, I don’t think they could, either. We were all just too young.
Watching them talk about the breakup, about the time that led to it, about how miserable they were and how painful the breakup itself was, was heartbreaking. Again, there’s such honesty and rawness to the whole thing; you just feel what they’re feeling. You truly feel just how much it tore them apart; how broken they were. It’s actually a bit painful to watch, and it makes me admire them even more, because as painful as it is to watch it tear them apart, it was certainly a hell of a lot more painful to go through. I don’t know if one can even begin to imagine just how painful it was, but the affect on them is absolutely clear nonetheless. You just feel it.
There’s something very Jonas Brothers-y about the hope and happiness the documentary ends with. That’s not said in dismissal or condescension; not in the slightest. But back in the day, when we were teens and kids, the Jonas Brothers were somewhat of a symbol of hope. Of family. Of happiness. So now seeing them back together — as brothers first and a band second, as it should be — just feels right. And a bit like they used to before, they leave you with that sense of hope that even though things aren’t perfect, as long as all sides are working for it, things will be alright.
How did someone — who was it? — once said? A little bit longer and I’ll be fine.