30 May 2019

The Glass Castle

18 March 2019



The Glass Castle 2017
  • Director: Destin Daniel Cretton
  • Based on the memoirs of Jeanette Walls
  • Cast: Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, Naomi Watts, Ella Anderson, Max Greenfield
  • Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
    • Brie Larson – Room, Short Term 12, Scott Pilgrim vs the World
    • Woody Harrelson – The Hunger Games, 2012, Battle in Seattle, No Country for Old Men, A Scanner Darkly, Prairie Home Companion, North Country, EDtv, The Thin Red Line, White Men Can’t Jump
    • Naomi Watts – The Impossible, King Kong, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, 21 Grams, Ned Kelly
    • Max Greenfield – Veronica Mars
  • Why? The cast
  • Seen: 17 March 2019      

       After fifteen minutes I already don’t like it.
       Straight-laced career woman Jeanette (Larson) is engaged to wealthy finance analyst David (Greenfield) in NY while her drunken parents are squatters
       Flashback to a childhood of hunger, constant fleeing from the authorities, neglect alternating with wild declarations of love and care from the parents. The father Rex (Harrelson) is a loud-mouth, violent know-it-all who thinks everyone else is an idiot. The mother Rose (Watts), an artist, protests now and then but loves him madly and goes along with everything he does. Jeanette and her siblings hate them and love them.
       Back to the present. Rex has nothing but contempt for Jeanette, David and their lifestyle.
       Miserable lives. Miserable movie. Bad parents are bad because their parents were bad.
       It’s a very strong film with superb acting by all but it’s just too awful. And if these kids forgive Rex in the end, the film will lose one of the stars I’m considering in the rating. He really doesn’t deserve it. The harm he has caused them is far greater than what good he might have done.
       Yeah, yeah, forgiveness is a virtue and will make you free and all that. But come on. Some injuries go too deep for recovery. This happy end just doesn’t work, interviews with the real people behind the characters notwithstanding.

2* of 5

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