Jane Roberts

A cancer diagnosis is devastating news for anyone, but it can be especially heartbreaking when the patient is a child. When young Miles Scott was diagnosed with leukemia, his parents, Nick and Natalie, sprang into action to attend to his medical needs. And, even though his prognosis for recovery was good, there were no guarantees, a potentially cruel prospect for someone barely starting out in life. Being robbed of one’s childhood just seems so patently unfair. But, then, that’s what good guys are for, and they more than came to the five-year-old’s rescue.

Carol Petersen (Blythe Danner) knows a lot about love and loss. Having been widowed 20 years earlier, when her adoring husband was tragically killed in a plane crash, the spry 70-something now spends most of her days on her own, living alone in a small but comfortable home. She has a close circle of card-playing friends who live in a nearby retirement community (June Squibb, Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place), and she periodically receives visits from her daughter, Kath (Malin Akerman). But the fear of being hurt again is so strong that she rarely ventures outside her limited daily routine. It’s all very controlled and very safe but also very lonely.

The impact of an idea can be considerable. When that notion is infused with the energy of a mass collaboration, it can become huge. And, when that initiative is linked with others of like tenor, a movement is born. So it was when the women of America united to get behind a cause that liberated them from the shackles of stifling limitation, a culture-changing crusade that reshaped society forever, the subject of the engaging new documentary, “She’s Beautiful When She’s Angry.”

Getting what we want out of life often takes considerable moxie. But all the chutzpah in the world won’t matter a damn if it’s not properly backed up with traits like personal integrity and sound intent. That can be a difficult lesson to learn, too, as a coterie of colorful characters finds out all too well in the new, fact-based, period piece comedy, “American Hustle.”