King of California: Loved the Allegory

Here's the description:

A fresh-out-of-the-mental institution father and his emancipated teenage daughter venture together on a quest for an ancient Spanish treasure buried beneath their local Costco in this take on the modern family and the American dream.

I picked this up at the library, having not heard of it before and interested only because I love Michael Douglas.  And I have to say this is my favorite performance from him, and matched by costar Rachel Wood.  The story is heart wrenching and hilarious all at the same time.  Here's what I saw:

The allegory for me is about life journey.  How when we are set apart and life seems too crazy to handle we are often forced to embark on a journey that appears crazy to everyone around us.  Sometimes it IS crazy.  We always have to watch for that balance, don't we?  When people tell us we're crazy to do this or that do we take heed? Sometimes we do, sometimes we can't.  It's beautiful how Michael Douglas' character pulls his daughter into believing in his journey.  Sometimes, just having one person that believes in our journey keeps us going, keeps it alive for us.

I thought it particularly poignant, humorous, and gut-wrenching that when they got to a key place on their hunt for buried treasure they had to literally dig beneath a Cosco store to continue.  It doesn't take a Jungian to see the message here.  So much of our psychic journey is buried under rock hard cement and over strewn with the distraction of the material.  And in this case, the overproduction and overconsumption that creates the illusion of well being.

Thus we are required to literally jack hammer our way through that wall of illusion to get to....yes, he found an underground river!  Oh, the mythology, the allegory...I just loved it!  The journey toward treasure....

Well, I won't ruin the ending for you.