Reviews

Forget Pinocchio, nobody's perfect. Tom Hanks is the epitome of everything great about Hollywood.

When I went to see this movie, my expectations were as mediocre as they get. "Oh this is going to be another cute movie, and then I'll forget about it tomorrow while I'm watching the NFL playoffs", boy was I wrong! This movie took me back to the first time I watched 'Philadelphia' with an open heart; not the first 200 times I watched it as a kid, but the first time I watched it as an adult and it became super-glued into my mind. The touching characters, the whirlwind of emotions, the "what if's" of each individual scene and, surprisingly, the welcoming of LGBTQ+ characters.

From the death of the (eventually) lovable main character, and the celebration of his life, (not just the mourning of his death), to the storytelling in flashbacks, this movie made me think so much of 'Philadelphia' that it might even surpass my 20 year love of that movie for this one. Maybe.

I haven't been moved to tears with a movie since the ending of 'The Last Song', and that was only because Miley Cyrus' "When I Look at You" was so darn touching & all encompassing that I couldn't help myself. (She really is a gem of her own).

I'm not a professional movie critic so I can't tell you about Dutch angles or lighting or anything related to filmmaking, but what I can say is the truth. Tom Hanks' performance outshined my expectations by 100x. The man, who I most recently watched play Mister Rogers, can play a Scrooge-esque character with as much validity.

You will laugh, you will cry, you will smile and you will frown, and that's just who Tom is. He can ever so carefully wind his way into your tiny little hearts and around the corner into your tear ducts, open them up, shut them and open them up again, all with precision like timing.

If you want a movie that will make you forget about the badness of the world for 2 hours and lift your spirits from a depression, I promise you, this movie is the one. Tom Hanks, once again, plays the psychiatrist we all needed, proving once again that you don't necessarily need to be an M. D. to prescribe joy to people, you just need to be a good person.