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Flipped
Madeline Carroll, Callan McAuliffe, Anthony Edwards, Aidan Quinn, Rebecca DeMornay, Penelope Ann Miller, John Mahoney. Directed by Rob Reiner.
When I found out this was a Rob Reiner coming-of-age film, I didn't need to know anything else in order to want to see it. Stand by Me is almost a standard in the genre, a well-made, almost timeless movie with very good, young talent and a clear memory of what it felt like to be on the verge of teenagerhood, or at least a clear presentation of what we think it felt like. Things may not be factually accurate, but even the inaccuracies are true. It ranks up there with The Sandlot for me.
Flipped looks a lot like Stand by Me and relies on similar devices, including a lot of voice-over narration and a soundtrack from the late fifties and early sixties. The critics are mixed in their response: Roger Ebert says it's "a warm entertainment" that "re-creates a life we wish we'd had when we were 14." Joe Morgenstern says, "Minutes seem like hours as the narrative dawdles and stalls." Nathan Rabin (The Onion A.V. Club) says it "contains a number of elements that would be problematically sentimental individually, but prove disastrous when combined" and that Reiner "slathers on multiple coats of sentimentality, just in case a solitary moment of restraint or understatement somehow slipped through." Michael Phillips says it "lands somewhere between synthetic nostalgia and the texture of real life" and feels "like a good try, as opposed to a good film."
Because I like Flipped, I enjoyed reading the negative reviews more than the positive; I know what I like about it and am sure that's what positive reviews like about it too. Do the negative reviews have a point?
Yes. But what the detractors dislike about the film are some of the things I like, including the HEAVY voice-over narration by the film's two stars. This is the most narrated movie I've ever seen, and where I think that kind of thing is often a crutch for writers and directors who don't know how to tell their story through dialogue, setting, action, and good characters (not to mention good acting), in this case it is a device that tries to remain true to the spirit of its source material (a young-adult novel I have not read by Wendelin Van Draanen). As it does in The Sandlot and Stand by Me, I think it reminds us that what we remember is more important than what actually happened.
The soundtrack is a bit heavy-handed at times. There are times when I thought to myself, "Okay...that's enough soundtrack!" and the soundtrack then fades down as if the director is reading my mind. Unfortunately, there are times when I thought that and the soundtrack continues, as cheaply manipulative as in far too many movies.
But the acting is solid, especially by Madeline Carroll, who plays Juli Baker. She reminds me of a less-witty Alexis Bledel (from Gilmore Girls), which is a good thing here. The older actors (who play parents and a grandparent) lend enormous believability to sometimes lazily-thought-out characters (especially Anthony Edwards, who for most of the film seems like a caricature, and Aidan Quinn, who for most of the film seems like a television dad from the nineties).
My biggest problem (besides the soundtrack) is that I think it's too easy to set this film in the early sixties, pre-Vietnam. The music and art direction remind us too easily of a million films we've already seen (including one of Reiner's own) that attempt to walk very similar ground. The novel is set in the current day, and while that might not work for Reiner's intended audience, why not set it in the seventies or eighties, ground which in sentimental nostalgia seems far less trodden? It's true that a lot of the music from those decades has been done to death, but there's a lot of unmined material from both decades that could work just as well. Do we really need another movie soundtrack with "He's So Fine" and "Teenager in Love?"
Finally, there's one thing this film is missing and I haven't decided whether I like it more because of it or if I'm disappointed because of it. I'm planning to see it again, so I'll stay away from the spoiler for now and revisit this review later, perhaps in a week's time.
An early 8/10 (iMDB rating) or 85/100 (Criticker rating), but I'm going to see it again and re-evaluate.
Edit: I just found out that Madeline Carroll is the little girl who plays Kevin Costner's daughter in Swing Vote. Aha.
Madeline Carroll, Callan McAuliffe, Anthony Edwards, Aidan Quinn, Rebecca DeMornay, Penelope Ann Miller, John Mahoney. Directed by Rob Reiner.
When I found out this was a Rob Reiner coming-of-age film, I didn't need to know anything else in order to want to see it. Stand by Me is almost a standard in the genre, a well-made, almost timeless movie with very good, young talent and a clear memory of what it felt like to be on the verge of teenagerhood, or at least a clear presentation of what we think it felt like. Things may not be factually accurate, but even the inaccuracies are true. It ranks up there with The Sandlot for me.
Flipped looks a lot like Stand by Me and relies on similar devices, including a lot of voice-over narration and a soundtrack from the late fifties and early sixties. The critics are mixed in their response: Roger Ebert says it's "a warm entertainment" that "re-creates a life we wish we'd had when we were 14." Joe Morgenstern says, "Minutes seem like hours as the narrative dawdles and stalls." Nathan Rabin (The Onion A.V. Club) says it "contains a number of elements that would be problematically sentimental individually, but prove disastrous when combined" and that Reiner "slathers on multiple coats of sentimentality, just in case a solitary moment of restraint or understatement somehow slipped through." Michael Phillips says it "lands somewhere between synthetic nostalgia and the texture of real life" and feels "like a good try, as opposed to a good film."
Because I like Flipped, I enjoyed reading the negative reviews more than the positive; I know what I like about it and am sure that's what positive reviews like about it too. Do the negative reviews have a point?
Yes. But what the detractors dislike about the film are some of the things I like, including the HEAVY voice-over narration by the film's two stars. This is the most narrated movie I've ever seen, and where I think that kind of thing is often a crutch for writers and directors who don't know how to tell their story through dialogue, setting, action, and good characters (not to mention good acting), in this case it is a device that tries to remain true to the spirit of its source material (a young-adult novel I have not read by Wendelin Van Draanen). As it does in The Sandlot and Stand by Me, I think it reminds us that what we remember is more important than what actually happened.
The soundtrack is a bit heavy-handed at times. There are times when I thought to myself, "Okay...that's enough soundtrack!" and the soundtrack then fades down as if the director is reading my mind. Unfortunately, there are times when I thought that and the soundtrack continues, as cheaply manipulative as in far too many movies.
But the acting is solid, especially by Madeline Carroll, who plays Juli Baker. She reminds me of a less-witty Alexis Bledel (from Gilmore Girls), which is a good thing here. The older actors (who play parents and a grandparent) lend enormous believability to sometimes lazily-thought-out characters (especially Anthony Edwards, who for most of the film seems like a caricature, and Aidan Quinn, who for most of the film seems like a television dad from the nineties).
My biggest problem (besides the soundtrack) is that I think it's too easy to set this film in the early sixties, pre-Vietnam. The music and art direction remind us too easily of a million films we've already seen (including one of Reiner's own) that attempt to walk very similar ground. The novel is set in the current day, and while that might not work for Reiner's intended audience, why not set it in the seventies or eighties, ground which in sentimental nostalgia seems far less trodden? It's true that a lot of the music from those decades has been done to death, but there's a lot of unmined material from both decades that could work just as well. Do we really need another movie soundtrack with "He's So Fine" and "Teenager in Love?"
Finally, there's one thing this film is missing and I haven't decided whether I like it more because of it or if I'm disappointed because of it. I'm planning to see it again, so I'll stay away from the spoiler for now and revisit this review later, perhaps in a week's time.
An early 8/10 (iMDB rating) or 85/100 (Criticker rating), but I'm going to see it again and re-evaluate.
Edit: I just found out that Madeline Carroll is the little girl who plays Kevin Costner's daughter in Swing Vote. Aha.