Tweet
The trailer for this movie is beyond misleading, if you're not familiar with the book that it's based on. It makes it look a sorta-reboot of "Grumpy Old Men," except with just one grumpy old man, Otto, played by Tom Hanks, and replacing the love story angle with the "delightful family next door" angle. The trailer tells what seems to be the whole damn story, complete with a "now he's friends with the kids next door" ending.
The part of the story not mentioned in the trailer (which, if you want to be surprised, stop reading now) is that Otto wants to "join his wife," who died six months ago, and to that end, he is bent on committing suicide, which he attempts several times during the film only to be conveniently interrupted each time by some outside distraction.
Now I'm not saying they should have revealed the suicide attempts in the trailer. Lord knows, the trailer already gives away far more of the story than would have been necessary to sell the movie. in fact if you saw the trailer, you probably went into the movie with a feeling you already knew the whole story.
But Tom Hanks being an "everyman" kinda guy, who often stars in family friendly movies, and the movie being PG-13, which almost every movie these days is, and the poster and trailer making him seem pretty benign and "safe," albeit grumpy, leads to a lot of families coming to this movie with NO idea that such a scary grown-up subject is presented, rather graphically, in the movie. So while the adults in the crowd are coming out either still shedding tears or raving about how good the movie is, family groups are leaving looking pretty somber, knowing there's going to be a difficult discussion in the car that they weren't planning to have when they went out to the movies.
Now having said all that, what about the movie? I enjoyed it a lot. It didn't have as many laugh-out-loud moments as I hoped for, but Hanks does his usual impressive job of making you forget you're looking at Tom Hanks. Mariana Treviño is really good as the wife in the family-next-door, and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is good as her somewhat goofy husband. The supporting cast, including Tom Hanks' son Truman playing a younger version of Otto in flashback scenes, is generally very good, although not exactly groundbreaking, but then this isn't a groundbreaking movie. There are a couple of nice twists in the sub-story involving a shifty real estate company, but in the end, the story is about Otto coming to terms with himself enough to realize that he really does have something to live for. (Or as he likes to put it, "I got a lotta things to do.")
My favorite part of the movie is during a flashback scene involving a bus crash. Otto's wife winds up in a hospital, near death, and the song "This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush plays on the soundtrack. It's one of the most heart-wrenching songs ever written -- it was originally written for an earlier movie about a mother who almost dies during childbirth -- and the lyrics, as played over that scene are really emotional. It put a major-sized lump in my throat, at least.
I haven't read the book but I'm curious if the cast of characters is similar to the movie or not. The movie comes off like today's typical Hollywood movie trying to check off all the boxes. So in this small neighborhood, you have one old white guy, a Mexican couple, a transgender kid, a gay man, a girl-next-door blonde, and a black couple. No Asians that I remember, but it takes place in Pittsburgh, you'd think there would be at least two of SOMEthing!
3.5 out of five stars for me.
The part of the story not mentioned in the trailer (which, if you want to be surprised, stop reading now) is that Otto wants to "join his wife," who died six months ago, and to that end, he is bent on committing suicide, which he attempts several times during the film only to be conveniently interrupted each time by some outside distraction.
Now I'm not saying they should have revealed the suicide attempts in the trailer. Lord knows, the trailer already gives away far more of the story than would have been necessary to sell the movie. in fact if you saw the trailer, you probably went into the movie with a feeling you already knew the whole story.
But Tom Hanks being an "everyman" kinda guy, who often stars in family friendly movies, and the movie being PG-13, which almost every movie these days is, and the poster and trailer making him seem pretty benign and "safe," albeit grumpy, leads to a lot of families coming to this movie with NO idea that such a scary grown-up subject is presented, rather graphically, in the movie. So while the adults in the crowd are coming out either still shedding tears or raving about how good the movie is, family groups are leaving looking pretty somber, knowing there's going to be a difficult discussion in the car that they weren't planning to have when they went out to the movies.
Now having said all that, what about the movie? I enjoyed it a lot. It didn't have as many laugh-out-loud moments as I hoped for, but Hanks does his usual impressive job of making you forget you're looking at Tom Hanks. Mariana Treviño is really good as the wife in the family-next-door, and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo is good as her somewhat goofy husband. The supporting cast, including Tom Hanks' son Truman playing a younger version of Otto in flashback scenes, is generally very good, although not exactly groundbreaking, but then this isn't a groundbreaking movie. There are a couple of nice twists in the sub-story involving a shifty real estate company, but in the end, the story is about Otto coming to terms with himself enough to realize that he really does have something to live for. (Or as he likes to put it, "I got a lotta things to do.")
My favorite part of the movie is during a flashback scene involving a bus crash. Otto's wife winds up in a hospital, near death, and the song "This Woman's Work" by Kate Bush plays on the soundtrack. It's one of the most heart-wrenching songs ever written -- it was originally written for an earlier movie about a mother who almost dies during childbirth -- and the lyrics, as played over that scene are really emotional. It put a major-sized lump in my throat, at least.
I haven't read the book but I'm curious if the cast of characters is similar to the movie or not. The movie comes off like today's typical Hollywood movie trying to check off all the boxes. So in this small neighborhood, you have one old white guy, a Mexican couple, a transgender kid, a gay man, a girl-next-door blonde, and a black couple. No Asians that I remember, but it takes place in Pittsburgh, you'd think there would be at least two of SOMEthing!
3.5 out of five stars for me.
Comment