I had never even heard of this till I noticed it on Netflix. 13 years late, I got to enjoy it at a time I need what they call some "feel good movie", though it's too delicate to be classified as such, in my opinion.
This is a soft story. About life and death. About parenting. About being a father. About owning, letting go, not letting go. The way it is told is strangely too vibrant for the plot. The characters are just too real, and the situation too genuine to place this fully under a single genre.
This may have been the best acting from Geeorge Clooney that I saw. Yeah, he's almost always good but the way he "runs funnily" in a few scenes is in and of itself proof how he embraced the real-life dad-in-despair he portrayed.
The older daughter is more than just a hottie. Really good actress. Everyone was made to act well, suggesting people worked wonders on the directorial front.
Having lost both parents, I had to relate to many scenes, like most mid-aged people were supposed to, I guess. The anger, the fury, the feeling of incompleteness... They're all there in the film, be it among lines or looks.
This doesn't even feel like a Hollywood production. They've captured the spirit of what I believe is actual Hawai so well that the outcome has grown out of that industry's routine embellishment.
From one angle, the movie resembles the one starring Antonio Banderas and Liam Neeson, showing how a much better result can be achieved when you decide to leave mathematical scripting and trickery behind to reach the true feelings. (Nah, that other movie was really dull and emotionless compared to this!) And also that humor helps!
Come to think of it... May I have seen it more than a dacede ago, only to forget or not get the gist of, because my parents my alive back then?
The way we perceive movies may depend on who we are at the time of seeing them.
This is a soft story. About life and death. About parenting. About being a father. About owning, letting go, not letting go. The way it is told is strangely too vibrant for the plot. The characters are just too real, and the situation too genuine to place this fully under a single genre.
This may have been the best acting from Geeorge Clooney that I saw. Yeah, he's almost always good but the way he "runs funnily" in a few scenes is in and of itself proof how he embraced the real-life dad-in-despair he portrayed.
The older daughter is more than just a hottie. Really good actress. Everyone was made to act well, suggesting people worked wonders on the directorial front.
Having lost both parents, I had to relate to many scenes, like most mid-aged people were supposed to, I guess. The anger, the fury, the feeling of incompleteness... They're all there in the film, be it among lines or looks.
This doesn't even feel like a Hollywood production. They've captured the spirit of what I believe is actual Hawai so well that the outcome has grown out of that industry's routine embellishment.
From one angle, the movie resembles the one starring Antonio Banderas and Liam Neeson, showing how a much better result can be achieved when you decide to leave mathematical scripting and trickery behind to reach the true feelings. (Nah, that other movie was really dull and emotionless compared to this!) And also that humor helps!
Come to think of it... May I have seen it more than a dacede ago, only to forget or not get the gist of, because my parents my alive back then?
The way we perceive movies may depend on who we are at the time of seeing them.