02-21-2006, 07:28 AM
This movie was really a relief -- a nice break after having O.D.'d on a steady diet of depressing films like Crash, Syriana, Munich, the Enron documentary, the surprisingly depressing March of the Penguins documentary, and endless Brokeback Mountain commercials.
A young boy, who spends his spare time reading about, and happens to see and talk to saints, and worrying about his relatively recently dead mum has a bag with hundreds of thousands of pounds in it thrown seemingly from nowhere into his playhouse. He brings his slightly older and very materialistic brother in on it. The little one keeps trying, with varying degrees of success, to give it to the poor, and the older one keeps trying to invest and/or spend it wisely.
I really enjoyed this. First time in a long time I've seen "innocent" and "honest" done well; not just a bunch of elements thrown together to manipulate or manufacture a feeling... it just worked. The menace and threat of the bad guy (the guy who originally stole the money trying to get it back) is genuinely disquieting without being overdone. I was worried whenever the bad guy showed up, but those moments happen and then are brushed away quickly enough that you don't wallow in negativity. Just enough conflict to move the story along.
The saints were hysterical; especially St. Joseph stepping in and playing himself at the grade school nativity play to cover for the younger boy when he has to run off and hide the money from the bad guy.
Good stuff.
A young boy, who spends his spare time reading about, and happens to see and talk to saints, and worrying about his relatively recently dead mum has a bag with hundreds of thousands of pounds in it thrown seemingly from nowhere into his playhouse. He brings his slightly older and very materialistic brother in on it. The little one keeps trying, with varying degrees of success, to give it to the poor, and the older one keeps trying to invest and/or spend it wisely.
I really enjoyed this. First time in a long time I've seen "innocent" and "honest" done well; not just a bunch of elements thrown together to manipulate or manufacture a feeling... it just worked. The menace and threat of the bad guy (the guy who originally stole the money trying to get it back) is genuinely disquieting without being overdone. I was worried whenever the bad guy showed up, but those moments happen and then are brushed away quickly enough that you don't wallow in negativity. Just enough conflict to move the story along.
The saints were hysterical; especially St. Joseph stepping in and playing himself at the grade school nativity play to cover for the younger boy when he has to run off and hide the money from the bad guy.
Good stuff.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.