I'm fairly cool on Anderson's later projects. But this one is pretty perfect.
I watched it with another film of this type and in a week with several others. Possibly the only way to make these things work is to find a new chink, a new layer between goofiness and endearing reality to invent. I say invent rather than depict because its all about where we place ourselves; if we can place ourselves new, that's usually enough to be effective, to connect.
A large part of why this works is because it works toward an end that fails. Many movies are not about what we experience but what we remember, and the deal with this one is that we are left with someone who topples from any workable awareness. It reinvents that place where we are balanced throughout the movie. Even knowing the later films, I never wondered that this would end badly because the tone follows such a well established path, that one I've noted elsewhere. As with "Legally Blond," there's a notion that earnestness will overcome inadequacies in all other life skills.
One of the political parties in the US has appropriated this, so in a way this can be considered as a political movie.
That last look is what this is all about, just as that first look of Jack Nicholson's in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest."
I came to this in part because of Owen's suicide attempt: it adds context that matters.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.
