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Seen last night with Mum.
I saw a trailer for this when it came out, and from that managed to get the impression that a) it was a fairly light-weight cheesy feel-good movie and b) the major driving event behind the plot was a family accidentally leaving their daughter behind in a service station when on a road-trip.
Wrong on both counts! Yes, it's life-affirming and frequently very funny - but this was definitely a lot more profound and well-observed than the term 'feel-good movie' usually implies. And yes, they do leave their daughter behind in a service station - but they realise pretty quickly and pick her up again, and it's by no means the central event of the film.
Anyway, we both really enjoyed it. I was reminded quite strongly of American Beauty in terms of how the characters and their interactions are revealed, although the plot is pretty different. And I absolutely loved the yellowy, faded and quite flat palette of colours they'd used for it. I wish I had the faintest idea how they'd achieved that 'look'.
Mum, meanwhile was reminded by the scenes with the grandfather's corpse of a 'second feature' she'd seen some time in the late '60s or early '70s, which revolves around two guys trying to get a dead body from the top floor of a tall building, down the stairs, over the garden fence and away in a car. Along the way, inevitably, they meet people coming up the stairs, and have to pretend the dead guy is drunk, or quickly shove him in a cupboard and so on. Apparently, in the end, he slips out of the back of the boot of their car, and they drive on off up the road oblivious to the fact. And if anyone has any idea at all what this might have been called, do speak up!
I saw a trailer for this when it came out, and from that managed to get the impression that a) it was a fairly light-weight cheesy feel-good movie and b) the major driving event behind the plot was a family accidentally leaving their daughter behind in a service station when on a road-trip.
Wrong on both counts! Yes, it's life-affirming and frequently very funny - but this was definitely a lot more profound and well-observed than the term 'feel-good movie' usually implies. And yes, they do leave their daughter behind in a service station - but they realise pretty quickly and pick her up again, and it's by no means the central event of the film.
Anyway, we both really enjoyed it. I was reminded quite strongly of American Beauty in terms of how the characters and their interactions are revealed, although the plot is pretty different. And I absolutely loved the yellowy, faded and quite flat palette of colours they'd used for it. I wish I had the faintest idea how they'd achieved that 'look'.
Mum, meanwhile was reminded by the scenes with the grandfather's corpse of a 'second feature' she'd seen some time in the late '60s or early '70s, which revolves around two guys trying to get a dead body from the top floor of a tall building, down the stairs, over the garden fence and away in a car. Along the way, inevitably, they meet people coming up the stairs, and have to pretend the dead guy is drunk, or quickly shove him in a cupboard and so on. Apparently, in the end, he slips out of the back of the boot of their car, and they drive on off up the road oblivious to the fact. And if anyone has any idea at all what this might have been called, do speak up!
