2017 has been a year that started as strong as any year in recent memory when it comes to movies. From the January and February box office smashes of Split (which, personally, I wouldn’t say I liked as much as many others) and Get Out to the successful continuations or reboots of franchise movies such as Kong: Skull Island, Alien: Covenant, War of the Planet of the Apes, and Logan to the absolutely captivating Life and Wind River, we had about ten movies heading into September, whereas in a normal year, we might have half that many. Now, if I asked a common moviegoer to name five non-animated movies released before September, the five could not include any of the ones I have just listed. They may have said Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Dunkirk, Spider-Man Homecoming, and Transformers: The Last Knight. Notice I did not list any of these films. Sure, Wonder Woman was fun and well-made, but it offered nothing that any other superhero origin movie in the last 10 years hadn’t already offered. Spider-Man Homecoming I didn’t even give a chance. Homecoming is the sixth Spider-Man release and third “origin” movie in the last 15 years. Eventually, you have to throw your hands up in the air and say, “Enough is enough. Stop taking my money.” The only one on this list of five that I had any real expectations for was Dunkirk and, while I didn’t dislike it, it failed to overwhelm me and certainly failed to live up to the lofty expectations I had set for it. There was also the little surprise of Baby Driver, which I have so much appreciation for because of its originality. Still, one that ultimately fell off the tracks the deeper it got into the movie. And as we head into Oscar season, I’m worried that 2017 will be a forgotten year. I hope to be surprised, but I feel that the movies nominated for Best Picture this year are going to disappoint. I hope to be wrong. I mention all of this because there have been some diamonds in the rough, and one of those is Destin Daniel Cretton’s (Short Term 12) The Glass Castle.
Before I get into this review, let me say what a year for Woody Harrelson. Nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his brilliant work as an honest police chief who is dying of painful anger was unable to bring justice to the mother of a daughter who was raped and murdered in the Oscar-contending Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, it wasn’t even his best performance of the year. Playing a narcissistic and maniacal leader of men in the highly praised War of the Planet of the Apes wasn’t his best performance either. Nor was his performance as the somewhat disgruntled Vice President Lydon Johnson who is forced to rise to the occasion after the assassination of John Kennedy in LBJ. His best performance was as the brilliant, troubled, abusive alcoholic father in The Glass Castle, the bestselling memoir of the same name by former New York gossip columnist Jeannette Walls (Brie Larson – Room, Kong: Skull Island). Harrelson seems to shine in roles where he has no restrictions, meaning characters that we really haven’t seen on film before. Natural Born Killers, Rampart, Out of the Furnace, Zombieland, The People Vs. Larry Flint, White Men Can’t Jump, HBO’s True Detective…his list goes on and on. And that’s what we get in The Glass Castle. He’s the perfect foil to Larson’s Jeannette, a woman who has made a stable life for herself as a writer for New York magazine despite her tumultuous upbringing. She’s also engaged to a very successful financial advisor (David – Max Greenfield – The Big Short, Hello, My Name is Doris). In the year 1989, her present life is quite different from her upbringing some 15 years prior.
I frequently reference in my reviews that I love it when a movie effectively transitions between the present day and flashbacks. When this is done well, it makes a good movie great or, as in the case of The Glass Castle, an average movie good [side note: when this is not done well, as, in The Time Traveller’s Wife, it can make a bad movie virtually unwatchable]. The Glass Castle has holes, most notably the gaps between what happens when we go from one flashback to the next. Sometimes, it becomes one of those, “Ok, how’d we get here?”. Jeannette is scared, ashamed, and embarrassed by her father. At the same time, she thinks he’s the most brilliant man she’s ever known, appreciates how honest he is, and how he doesn’t pretend to be somebody who he isn’t. The second oldest of four siblings, Jeannette doesn’t have to compete for her father’s attention because her older sister, younger brother, and younger sister don’t have much interest in the man. The relationship between Jeannette and Rex IS the story. We are indeed supposed to sympathize with Jeannette, who was forced to care for herself and her siblings when she was just a little color as the family moved from town to town, often going without food for days or school for months. Her father could not hold down a job because of his alcoholism. Though she knew his dream of designing and building a glass castle for the family to live in was never going to happen, she appreciated him for believing. Her relationship with her self-absorbed mother (a miscast Naomi Watts – The Ring, King Kong), who often served as the mediator, wasn’t quite as terse. However, she was still front and center of a life that she wanted to distance herself from but had trouble doing. David is absolutely terrified of Rex. And who wouldn’t be? The man was unpredictable when sober. When drunk, life around him was hell.
I hate the term “coming of age.” Half the movies I review could be defined as “coming of age” stories. Some of the ones that truly are “coming of age” are great. And while this movie does do a great job of fusing past to present, I’m not sure it’s really a story that needs to be told. Harrelson and Larson are great. The rest of the cast is serviceable. And, yes, many of us have derisive relationships with one or both of our parents…so much so that things that happened to us when we are young have a drastic impact on who we become as adults. But there are millions of those stories. Why was this one special? Ultimately, it wasn’t. It was a dime a dozen story carried by Harrelson’s flamboyant behavior that contrasts Larson’s rigid, by the book persona. It’s a dysfunctional but loving family story. It’s a movie that I saw in July and didn’t review. It’s a movie that I watched seven months later and found more flaws in it than I did after viewing number one. I did. It’s a movie that I thought was more original on the first watch, but one that reminded me a lot more of a depressing Captain Fantastic the second time around.
Good move. Not a great one. And probably one that didn’t need to be made for the big screen.
Plot 8/10
Character Development 8/10
Character Chemistry 8.5/10
Acting 8/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 8.5/10
Cinematography 8.5/10
Sound 9/10
Hook and Reel 8.5/10
Universal Relevance 8.5/10
83.5%