A woman shared footage of her 93-year-old grandmother reacting to finally seeing Wicked on the big screen, many years after she first fell in love with the characters from The Wizard of Oz.
Alison Van Dam, an actress, writer, producer and podcaster in Minnesota, posted on TikTok (@alison.vandam) the clip from a recent trip to see the big-screen adaptation of Wicked, the musical inspired by 1939’s Wizard of Oz film.
What made the trip particularly special was the fact Van Dam was joined by two other generations of her family: her mom and her grandmother.
Van Dam told Newsweek she has always been “very close” to her grandma. “Even though we lived several hours apart growing up, she was always there for us, dropping everything to help when we needed her and even stepping in as a daytime caretaker while my parents worked,” she said.
Van Dam has fond memories of she and her sister going to stay with her grandmother in South Dakota during summer breaks from school.
Her grandma always made an effort to be helpful, so when she decided to move from South Dakota to where Van Dam and her family live in Minnesota, her granddaughter set her heart on returning the favor whenever she could.
“Having her just a mile up the road is a gift I’ll never take for granted,” Van Dam said.
The power of regular, quality time with elderly relatives cannot be underestimated. In 2023, a study published in the online journal BMC Medicine found that older people who socialized regularly with friends and family live longer.
So when Van Dam decided to go see Wicked, which stars Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo, at a movie theater in White Bear Lake, she could think of no one better to accompany her than her grandma.
“We always check in with her and how she’s feeling before bigger events and wanted to make sure she was up for a three-hour movie. I’m so glad that she was,” she said.
Van Dam’s grandma was 8 years old when The Wizard of Oz, starring July Garland, came out in 1939, though she had to wait some time to see it.
“She wasn’t able to see the movie until later in life—she grew up on a farm without electricity,” Van Dam said. Her grandma never forgot the day she eventually got to see it on the big screen.
“She said she watched it the most when my mom and her siblings were younger. She said it was an amazing experience. Being able to go into town to a movie theater and watch something that magical was something she remembers to this day,” Van Dam said.
Her grandma had to wait a lot longer to see Wicked, but it was well worth the wait. Van Dam describes it as a “core memory” for all three of them.
“It was so special to see the movie with her and my mom. My favorite part was watching her watch the screen,” she said. “Some people have commented [on the TikTok video] that she lost herself in the world and became a little girl again—if only for a few hours—and that makes me so happy.”
Getting to have times like this with her grandma has been very special to Van Dam. “Anything that we get to do as three generations is something I cherish,” she said. “We’ve talked about going and seeing it again.”
Van Dam’s video of their day at the movies has been viewed over 500,000 times. She hopes it reminds those watching that “the smallest moments can be the most impactful.”
“Something as simple as spending a Sunday at the movies with your grandma can become a memory you’ll treasure forever,” she said. “When you take a step back and consider the context—her life, our relationship and the rarity of three generations sharing something so magical—it becomes clear that these little experiences are actually the big ones.”