We Bought a Zoo (***½)
Directed by: Cameron Crowe
Starring: Matt Damon, Scarlet Johansson, Thomas Haden Church, Colin
Ford, Maggie Elizabeth Jones, Angus MacFadyen, Elle Fanning, Patrick Fugit,
John Michael Higgins, J.B. Smoove, Carla Gallo
Seen: January 20th 2012
***½
Out of ****
After 6 years of absence, director Cameron Crowe returns with a movie
that can proudly stand among his previous movies; Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous,
Vanilla Sky, and Elizabethtown. I’m a fan of his previous movies, and nothing
changes with the beautiful We Bought a Zoo. It is sure to be one of the
feel-good movies of the year, and I truly enjoyed the sweet-and-sour mixture of
family life and other friendships and relationships in this cinematic retelling
of Benjamin Mee’s true life memoir.
Six months after the death of his wife, Benjamin (Damon) decides to
move, as the small town he lives in contains too many reminders of his wife. His
14 year old son Dylan is uncooperative, but his expulsion from school serves as
the catalyst for the move, and together with his 7 year old daughter Rosie
(Jones), Benjamin goes house-hunting accompanied by Mr. Stevens (Smoove), an extremely
entertaining estate agent. When they find a home that looks to be perfect, Mr.
Stevens keeps trying to mention something that Benjamin, in his excitement
about the house, doesn’t acknowledge until a Lion’s roar is heard, and Mr.
Stevens gets to tell them: “It’s a zoo.”
The home is part of a package deal including a dilapidated zoo with
more than 40 species of animal and a skeleton staff. Benjamin thinks why not,
and buys it. Of course there’s the nay-sayers, this time in the form of the zoo
staff, led by Kelly Foster (Johansson), who don’t necessarily believe Benjamin
capable; or if not capable determined enough to take on the task of renovating
the zoo to re-open it to the public. As the zoo staff start coming around when
Benjamin’s determination starts becoming evident, the only negative ones left
are Rhonda (Gallo), the zoo secretary, and Walter Ferris (Higgins), the zoo
inspector and ‘mortal’ enemy of zoo carpenter Peter MacReady (MacFadyen), but
both of these present obstacles which turn out to be small as the story is mainly
focussed on being positive and enjoyable.
Benjamin’s relationship with Dylan takes strain as Dylan must come to
terms with the fact that he is now removed from his friends in a remote
location where he has one remaining friend, the lovely Lily Miska (Fanning).
Lily and Dylan develop feelings, but Dylan, in his stubborn opposition to his
dad, manages to drive Lily away. Benjamin and Rosie are very close, but after a
strong start for the smart and surprisingly resourceful Rosie, she is relegated
to near invisibility in the movie as the focus moves towards Benjamin and Dylan’s
relationship near the movie’s culmination.
While We Bought a Zoo is not the most original movie I’ve ever seen,
it is one of the most heart-felt. Matt Damon’s portrayal of an optimist with
two children suffering through grief is beautiful; Thomas Hayden Church is
fantastic as Duncan, Benjamin’s “wiser”, older, accountant brother; and Scarlet
Johansson quickly disarms the viewer as her character starts to creep into Benjamin’s
heart. We Bought a Zoo is one of my favourite family movies in a very long
time, and I loved every minute of it.
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