“You’re wrong if you think the joy of life comes principally from human relationships.”

Well, 2007 just keeps getting better and better. As this began my first thought was basically whoops watching it so soon after Forbush ... but while there’s certainly a similarity in this story of man finding himself and humanity in nature, this has plenty more to warrant the extra hour of running time. It ends with less hope than Forbush, but somewhere in the midst of it is an abundance of the stuff.

I’d kind of convinced myself that it would be another of those 2007 movies to have a tremendous central conceit but one that’s simply not backed up enough by the unexpected stuff that surrounds it. It could easily have been exactly what it is but over 2 and a half hours got tired. But, and I don’t know what it is – I’d say Eddie Vedder’s songs, but they’re actually fairly sparse and I’d heard them before; I’d say Emile Hirsch’s performance but it’s really a mix of fresh-faced Leo DiCaprio-ness and emaciated Christian Bale that we’ve seen plenty of before (not to say it’s still not utterly compelling). I think more than likely it’s the whole combination – there simply isn’t a false note here. William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden are absolutely heartbreaking as the parents; Jena Malone about as perfectly cast as the almost psychically close sister as Maggie Gyllenhaal and Zooey Deschanel were in Donnie Darko and Almost Famous, her voiceover contributing to the constant reassessment of ideas this movie is. This really had me hooked from start to finish. It never stops clarifying and questioning its message. I haven’t read the book so I can only comment on Sean Penn’s screenplay and say his intelligence shines through with none of his occasionally grating self-righteousness. The dialogue is just about constant poetry, particularly in Alex/Chris and his sister’s voiceovers. I definitely picked the right movie to watch on my birthday.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 8:48 pm in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews and tagged as animals, freedom, horses, Nineties, sister, wilderness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.