Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I'd hoped to have time to write a more detailed, thoughtful review to post than the hurried notes I'd sent my sister on Monday, but this week's turning out to be just as stressful as last week, so . . . here's what I have. In case I forget to mention this later on, I heartily recomment both Nim's Island and "Smart People" (though the latter might be more enjoyable to an adults-only audience than the former).

After a long, dry spell of no-theater-going (aside from seeing "The Counterfeiters" two and a half weeks ago, which was well-done, I thought, but about as entertaining as you'd expect a movie set in Nazi death camps to be), I actually saw "NIM'S ISLAND" twice this past weekend (mainly because I missed the first five minutes of it, first time around), and "SMART PEOPLE" once.

I definitely wanted to see Gerard Butler in "NIM'S ISLAND" (especially after I'd caught the Ebert & Roeper review, in which it became plain that Butler ALSO played the fantasy adventure hero "Alex Rover" who was invented by Jodie Foster's character -- novelist and 'borderline' agoraphobe Alexandra Rover -- so he has quite a LOT of screen-time, and much of it in tight-fitting Indiana Jones get-up!), so I made that my first priority on Saturday afternoon.

However, I didn't know that the Independent Film Festival was also going on at my favorite multiplex this week, and that therefore it would take much longer to park and get to the movie, even though the Indie folks had a separate entrance and ticket line. So, I arrived in my seat maybe five minutes into the movie, instead of right on time as I'd expected (and even though the youngster at the ticket window assured me that the film would still be in previews -- which provided my feeble justification for sneaking into a second showing to see what I'd missed the next day).

I must say I quite enjoyed it, with all its willing suspension of disbelief about the level of communication possible between a little girl and the lizards who live on her island, or about the ability of a pelican to carry heavy metal objects over long distances of ocean. I thought some of the 'slapstick' with Foster's clutzy novelist character could've been edited out, for my taste, but much of it did get laughs from the little kids in the audience, however (of whom there were quite a few at both afternoon showings I attended -- the slapstick and the sea-lion farting seemed to delight their sense of humor the most, though the flying lizards at one point were a close second). Still, there were a couple of references I knew I'd missed, first time through.

So, when I got to the theater early on Sunday afternoon, in plenty of time to see all the previews and watch Dennis Quaid and Tom Haden Church (being curmudgeonly and slovenly in a way that was pretty darn endearing) in "SMART PEOPLE" in its entirety (very smart movie, and highly entertaining, especially to anyone familiar with academia and/or a bit of the publishing world, or anybody whose own family has members who've fallen into an antisocial rut from time to time), I nipped directly across the hall to catch the last of the previews and the first few minutes of "NIM" again, to see what I'd missed.

I was going to leave right after that (I swear!), but then I thought I'd like to see the early scenes with Nim's dad (Gerard Butler) again, and the scenes from Alex Rover's latest adventure as Nim imagines them taking place, and perhaps wait for Nim to start her email correspondence with Alexandra Rover the writer. I ended up sitting through the whole thing again, and now that I HAD heard the beginning bit about the story her father had told Nim to explain how her mother had died (the story of the blue whale, the oceanographer, and the buccaneer ship, which is covered right at the very beginning of the film), there were a lot of pieces that fell into place for me (pieces I'd found puzzing or meaningless the first time around), right through to the animation behind the closing credits at the end.

See "Smart People" if you'd like to see Dennis Quaid's 'going-through-the-motions-of-living-and-being-a-pain-in-everyone's-ass-while-he's-at-it' professor of English literature reconnect with his better self and his kids, with help from his slovenly-and-loving-it adopted brother (and believe me, it's not as facile or trite as I may've made that sound). And see "Nim's Island" if you have kids who are old enough not to be traumatized by the suggesiton of a single father being (temporarily) in danger of being lost at sea while his unsinkable little girl is trying to deal with adult challenges at home, alone . . . or if (like me) you're simply a fan of Gerard Butler's beautifully homely face and charismatic humor (not to mention the nice bod and Scots accent) and have a yen to see him in a dual role as fantasy hero and real-life dad-hero.