Family-Friendly Zoo Worth Buying
Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) is an adventure-seeking journalist working for a Los Angeles newspaper. Lately, he hasn’t had time to jump out of airplanes or head into conflict zones as his latest enterprise is far more personal in nature, the still grieving widower trying his best to care for children Dylan (Colin Ford) and Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) six months after his wife’s tragic death. Problem is, he’s not exactly doing a great job of it, a fact older brother Duncan (Thomas Haden Church) is quick to point out, everything in their neighborhood reminding him of his beloved making trying to relate and assist his kids as they try to move on themselves all the more difficult.
Matt Damon in We Bought a Zoo © 20th Century Fox
He’s got a solution. They will move out of L.A., go into the country, get away from all the noise, hustle and bustle and find a place they can move on with their lives free of things that remind them of ‘her.’ But when the perfect new home turns out to be a fully functioning zoo complete with lions, tigers, bears and oh my, Benjamin and his family – especially teenager Dylan, who never wanted to leave the city in the first place – may have bitten off more than they can chew. Yet with the aid of head zookeeper Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson) maybe this is exactly the place the Mees have been meant to discover, a new home that reminds them that the past isn’t something to run away from and that the future isn’t a thing to be afraid of but instead embrace with open arms.
If this sounds a bit saccharine and slight, I can’t really disagree with that assessment. Based on Mee’s own memoir, We Bought a Zoo is hardly moving in unfamiliar directions or trading on emotional nuances we haven’t seen numerous times before. It is, at its heart, a family melodrama that unabashedly embraces its most heartwarming clichés, reveling in the majority of them far more readily than is probably good for the finished product.
Yet for all the treacle, for all the overblown melodramatic theatrics, the final third of this picture is so perfectly realized, so intimately detailed, so filled with honest emotional responses and reactions I’m more than willing to forgive many of the picture’s low rent genre theatrics. Directed and co-written by the great Cameron Crowe, the man’s first trip back behind the camera since 2005’s Elizabethtown, the movie has a terrific final act that held me spellbound, everything leading to a climactic final scene ranking as one of the very best of the entire year.
Not that this completely forgives the first couple of acts. Crowe and fellow writer Aline Brosh McKenna (Morning Glory, 27 Dresses) don’t exactly aim high during the early portions, and it isn’t like each and every beat of the story isn’t spelled out in brightly blinking neon\capital letters. Dylan’s so angst-ridden he’s two steps away from starting a Grunge band and then overdosing on heroin, while Rosie is so starry-eyed cute you’d think someone plucked her out of a Disney animated movie. Scenes with Kelly’s bubbly younger sister Lily (Elle Fanning, trying her best but only succeeding to make her character feel real and/or genuine right at the very end) are borderline embarrassing, while a subplot concerning a smug zoo inspector (John Michael Higgins) are downright noxious.
At the same time, Damon’s performance never wavers, never veers off track, the actor doing a grand job of grounding Mee in the here and now and making his emotional roller coaster ride feel far more genuine than it probably has any right to. He anchors the picture beautifully, spitting out Crowe’s patented A-level dialogue with remarkable conviction. Damon makes things sing far more eloquently than they would have without him, and as obnoxious as much of the first two-thirds can be they still remain interesting and tinged with a melancholic intrigue due in large part to him.
Johansson is also quite good, as are supporting players Church, Patrick Fugit and Angus Macfadyen. The film is also expressively shot by Rodrigo Prieto (Brokeback Mountain, Water for Elephants) and divinely scored by Jon Thor Birgisson a.k.a Jónsi, the lead singer and guitarist for Sigur Rós giving the picture a signature sound I found sublime. In fact, all the technical aspects here are excellent, Crowe showcasing once again why he was considered one of the premiere craftsman in Hollywood before taking an extended hiatus after his last effort disappointingly underperformed.
Ultimately, it is the final 30 minutes that won me. It is during this stretch that Crowe begins clicking on all cylinders, and while the film sticks to its family-friendly roots it achieves an informal universality that’s close to perfect. As for that last scene, it’s so magnificent I can still feel the tears welling to the corners of my eyes, the ebullient emotional brilliance of it hitting home in a way I just didn’t see coming. While the movie as a whole isn’t quite the return to form many fans of the director were probably hoping for, We Bought a Zoo has more than enough going for it to make giving it a look worthwhile. I liked it, reservations and all, and as Christmas matinee possibilities are concerned this is a ticket I’d happily purchase without a second thought.
Film Rating: êêê (out of 4)
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