I heard a review on the news of WALL•E last night. The reviewer gave it two-and-a-half out of four because, I'm paraphrasing as best I can, parts of it are lonely and sad and families, and especially younger kids, don't need sadness and loneliness when they go to the movies.
I would rather hear what she thought of the movie and why she didn't like it than what she thinks families should want from the movies they go to see. I wonder what she thought of it compared to the "family" films out there, like College Road Trip.
I haven't seen WALL•E yet (I'm going this evening.) but her comment about what families, and especially younger kids, don't need to see.
I completely disagree with her that younger kids don't need to see things that depict loneliness and sadness. These kids, like every other human being, feel lonely and sad sometimes, but they don't always have the vocabulary to describe how they're feeling. When their best friend is gone for the summer and they just don't feel right, how else can they describe it? Seeing things that they have felt, or are feeling, or will feel, helps them to build some sort of language to share how they feel with their parents or others, even it the only thing they can say is, "I feel like WALL•E did when he was on the planet all by himself," and from that parents or an older siblings or other family members can build on ideas to help the kids understand what they're feeling and how it moves on.
Maybe I’m just naïve thinking that kids have reasoning abilities. I doubt it, though.
Hell, I've seen the previews, and WALL•E doesn't stay lonely forever.
That has to count for something, dammit.
6 comments:
We're taking Cole. Probably tomorrow. Blast the loneliness! That's no reason not to see a movie!
I figured if you didn't take him to see it, you were going to buy it. And I bet a lot of other parents will be taking their kids, too.
It just really bugged me how she seemed to suggest that people should slap rose colored glasses on their kids, as if they couldn't handle the richness of the world around them.
Now we've seen it and I REALLY don't understand the complaint. I thought it was a lovely movie.
Neither do I. And the Kids who were there seemed, for the most part, enraptured by it. And I heard them talk, as they left, about how it made them feel.
What the hell was that lady thinking?
She must not have kids.
Maybe not, but she sure has some opinions on the things families "need" to see.
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