Magic Marmalade ● 7th Dec 2021
| | Rated 9/10Wonderful movie!
I missed this first time around, as I think there was a lot else going on at the time to take attention away from it, and the reviews were not particularly inspiring... And also Jim Carey's over the top-ness had begun to wear a little thin for me.
But he thankfully gives a very understated, straight up performance in this understated, slow paced, and yes, very sentimental film.
It's not without it's faults of course, mainly in that it almost seems to be "designed" to be what it is:
"What do people like in a movie? - let's take all those pieces, and make a whole new movie from them"
...As such, you'll frequently see immediately where plot points, and other ideas are from other movies as it goes (at least one of which, Carey has been in himself: Truman Show!)
, and many other things that are not wholly original, but well worn, tried and trusted formula:
A big city type gets stuck out in a quaint pastoral town with traditional values (Doc Hollywood), in this case, a Hollywood screenwriter, and he's got there by having an accident in which he loses his memory, and is taken to be one of the old residents, who was thought o have been killed in the war, now returned (Isn't there a Richard Gere movie along those lines?)
...But the townsfolk welcome him "home", and especially his "ex-girlfriend", and "father", owner of a dilapidated old cinema that the re-invigoration of the townsfolk his arrival inspires, promotes a possible return to glory days.
It's perhaps loaded with too much by way of plot points, as it's set in McCarthy era Communist hunting America, and his accident is had whilst "fleeing" such persecution, as well as a big theme of honouring local war heroes, and also added to the mix, is the cinema aspect.
But in the end (and this is a reasonably long film) it does tie together... somewhat.
And they really threw the kitchen sink at this, with lots of actors you'd both remember, and love: Martin Landau, the dude from MASH, and at least a couple of the actors from Shawshank Redemption (Brooks) and Green Mile.
But it's a very sentimental, slow paced, meandering, warm, cosy movie with a Nat King Cole soundtrack and such, that is great for a Sunday afternoon's viewing, sitting on the sofa feeling squishy :)
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