I love Paul Rudd. I figured there would be more to this movie than just a story about an idiot guy who asks the guy next to him on the subway to hold his huge wad of cash so he could tie his shoes or whatever. And I was right. The problem is, even a really good cast could not pull it off. I had an idea that it would be sweet - a story about trusting others and living without prejudgments, worry, stress or anger and how one guy living that way could open everyone up to peace, love and understanding. It was sort of that way, but something got lost in translation. Maybe this film was trying to be a little quirkier than other movies doling out the same type of message.
I was hoping to leave there feeling inspired to be an "idiot" - the idea that simplicity is mistakenly viewed in our society as stupid or naive, and that is somehow bad. Being nonjudgemental or keeping things simple does not equal being dumb or naive. The film sort of made me mad like that, but at least the sisters in the movie realized that they were wound too tight and thought they'd like to think more like their "idiot" brother instead of how they'd been acting, but it just didn't feel genuine somehow. It felt like they were going to laugh at the end and say, "HAHAHA - we were just kidding you, you IDIOT!"
I expected too much. I went to see Little Miss Sunshine with no expectations - LOVED IT. I loved the relationships between these strange and unlikable people that grew stronger by the end of the movie. They all forgot their differences to form a protective shell around Olive. Genuinely sweet. I went to see Sunshine Cleaning with no expectations and really liked that a lot too. The relationships worked somehow. Maybe it's just Alan Arkin.
I give this movie: 2 Oscars (represented by a black cat since my black cat is named Oscar)
No comments:
Post a Comment