The 4-1-1: Stars: Ewan McGregor, Billy Crudup, Albert Finney, and Jessica Lange; Director: Tim Burton; Rating: PG-13; Total running time: 125 minutes.
The Venue: DVD at Home and at The Cannon Beach Hotel.
The Preface: Laura has been mentioning this movie to me for some time as something that she thought I'd like. I'll I really knew about the film was that it has Ewan McGregor and was directed by Tim Burton. The first thing I knew didn't scare me so much as the second - but, alas, when a lovely wife insists - what can one do but indulge her and enjoy the film.
The Film: ...and enjoy it I did! The film is a narrative about a son (Crudup) and a father (Finney) who've had an estranged relationship for the past few decades. When the son was a child, the father would regale him with fantastical stories of witches, sporting feats, military bravery, adventures with a giant, and (of course) a big fish that was caught by using a his wedding band. As the boy grew older - he grew weary and tired of the stories and longed to know the truth about his father's past - even if the truth was boring, trite, and dull.
The story moves forward in modern day with the son having moved off to France and married a girl there who is now expecting their first child. He gets an unexpected phone call from his mother (Lange) to say that his dad's health has worsened and he wasn't expected to live much longer. So - in an attempt to reconcile his relationship with his dad and try to find out, once and for all, the truth about who is dad is, he heads home (new wife in tow).
The movie interweaves the father's tales of his past adventures with his son's biting cynicism about how those things could never be possible and continues to press him for more truthful answers.
In many ways, the movie is predictable in how it ends - but not so much in how it gets there. You know that the son and dad are going to reconcile before he dies - but the way in which the story is told to get that to happen in very touching and heartwarming. As is typical of any Tim Burton movie, Helena Bonham Carter has a small role, as does Steve Buschemi and Danny DeVito.
The movie does leave a few questions unanswered, as "Why did he choose to do some of the things he did," and the movie drops a few hints about the reality of some of the more far fetch stories he told - but never really resolves them well. However, I suppose that I can overlook that fact and look to the larger message of the film: people are rarely ever who we want them to be and are often complicated for reasons we may never understand. However, that should have nothing to do with our ability to love and cherish all the people who are important to us and love us back.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10.
No comments:
Post a Comment