ALMOST a really good movie.... but then....

yes.... the movie was contrived as hell. So much manipulation that I felt a little dirty after finishing it.

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The extreme portrayal of Daniel didn't bother me at all. I think it was necessary that Daniel reacted to way he did, otherwise Juli wouldn't have been so offended at the "apple never falls too far from the tree" comment, not knowing how hard things are for Daniel.

I do, however, agree with the dangling storyline point. I get that Steven was just acting out in a lot of ways because he wasn't completely satisfied with the decisions he made in life but they never went anywhere with it. I didn't expect him to quit his corporate job and pursue a career in music but they didn't even do so much as mention it. His father had no redeeming qualities through the whole movie.

But other than that one tidbit, I wasn't left with any disappoints.

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There's a little more to the Bryce's dad storyline in the book. Essentially, the plot line kind of follows Juli and Bryce's path, only not so happy an ending. It's kind of a contrast. After Bryce tries to kiss Juli and she's at home with her mom, her mom explains that Bryce's mom and dad are in a lot of trouble because she never saw past the surface. This is where some casting issues come in. Bryce is supposed to be a spitting image of his father, so casting the guy they did as Stephen is kind of unrealistic. Also, Chet kind of hints that his daughter never looked past the surface when he first starts helping Juli with her yard.

Essentially, Stephen is suck a jacka** so Bryce can figure out what he DOESN'T want to be like, and Juli realizes she needs to look past the surface.

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I agree about the dangling story lines. I liked how it ended with Bryce and Juli, but I was wondering about everyone else.

~*~*~
Seth Cohen: I'm allergic, and there's so much pollen in here right now. It's ridiculous.

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I disagree, but see where you're coming from. As said his extreme reaction was needed to shuffle along Juli's bitterness at the library and subsequent scenes.

As for the dangling storylines, I kinda liked it, was kinda '....well that went nowhere....' about it. The pop kinda needed to be a jerk, and some people are just like that. Usually they have a reason they're that way, but my dad was honestly much the same and I never really figured out why. So, while a bit tangent of the driving plot, I liked that Bryce tried to characterize his father with the 'coward' bit (something I myself trivialized with but, much like Bryce, never ultimately discovered how grounded in reality it was), but I really liked the 'like me' tagged to the end that kinda drove home the 'sons become their fathers' idea, as well as Bryce's subsequent actions, possibly trying to keep himself from becoming like his old man.

The band bit didn't really bug me. Maybe some other mention woulda been nice, but it wasn't a deal breaker. As for the daughter, probably reconciling. Again, similar things happened with my pop, and ultimately got sorted, (sometimes I think) unfortunately to that end.

Really, I liked that it kept from conventionality with tying everything up in a neat bow. I figured that, since Bryce and Juli were narrating as their 8th grade selves, not as adults, then it's logical to assume that alot of the same questions we the audience have are the kinds they have. For me, anyway, that makes it far more real and I could definitely sympathize with them better than I could if they were adults looking back on this time in their life and knowing all the answers, spoon feeding them to us. Not all plots are resolved in real life, and aside from the change in personality between the characters, no plot was truly 'resolved' per se, as we didn't see it to the end. I liked that about this movie, but to each their own.

You call it immature, Chris Hansen calls it "catching a predator", I call it...The Super Troll

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Very weird and stereotypical portrayal of Daniel. He seemed more autistic than someone who was brain-damaged at birth. And the actor was like someone from a small town community theater. I almost thought it was a joke at first.

I completely agree. I am just catching this movie for the first time and that was the first thing I thought of when 'we' 'meet' Daniel for the first time.

The way they talked about Daniel needing to be in a home suggested continual care, and the suggestion that Daniel actually had cerebral palsy compounded the feeling that he was not going to be portrayed the way he was, but rather with a more severe disability. I can't believe that somebody in production didn't think about this.



"taking a strong stand publicizes the opposite position" - Jenny Holzer

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I tend to appreciate dangling storylines. Makes it seem real, if anything, to me, certainly not fake. It's not real to have everything neatly wrapped up in the same timeframe. The focus of the movie was the Bryce–Juli storyline; whatever the thing was between Bryce and his dad, and between Bryce's sister and his dad, probably developed further after the point the movie stops. And that's just fine... well, to me, anyway, it is.

I don't like when a movie has to have everything perfectly spelled out, or when every scene that is in has to have some purpose to the story at large. I guess I'm of the slice-of-life variety of movie watchers, in that respect.

It's fine of course to feel differently; I just wanted to give my two cents.

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My vote history: http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=13037287

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