Post by BIGFANBOY on Nov 2, 2007 5:40:22 GMT -5
MARTIAN CHILD
Review by Gary Dean Murray
John Cusack is a very workman actor that never seems to get his due. A star since being a teenager, this thespian has put on the screen an amazing array of different performances. To look over his cinematic resume gives one pause in both the number and variety of roles he has ceded. His latest film and one of his best is the strange relationship flick Martian Child.
The film opens with David (John Cusack) still reeling over the loss of his wife. Her best friend Harlee (Amanda Peet) is at the cemetery with David, visiting the grave. The bond between them is strong in the fact they have both lost an important individual.
David is a science fiction writer with a giant best-selling novel that is being made into a major motion picture. David’s agent Jeff (Oliver Platt) is just pushing for the sequel, a book that our hero is having difficult time writing. He just doesn’t have the spark.
David tells Harlee that he is considering going ahead with the adoption he and the wife were planning. David’s sister Liz (Joan Cusack) doesn’t think that a single parent adoption is a good idea. When David goes to the orphanage, hen notices a kid in a box (Bobby Coleman). The director informs our writer that the youngster believes that he has been sent here from Mars. David becomes intrigued with the out of place kid.
So the two take a crack at being Dad and Son. It is not an easy fit. The boy keeps insisting that he is from another planet. Wearing a weight belt to keep him from floating off and carrying an umbrella to keep the harsh solar rays out, the kid is a prime target for being bullied. He builds strange contraptions in order to contact his home planet. Always taking pictures, he believes that he must document his time on earth before he is taken back to his home planet.
David notices a few things he cannot easily understand and has some fleeting moments of doubt with his young charge. The entire flick builds to a confrontation between a man who imagines strange worlds and a boy who lives in this strange world.
There is so much to like here. The biggest heaps of praise have to go to John Cusack. He takes what should have been a maudlin role and has put some pathos in the mix. We feel for him because we know he was that kind of kid, a lost dreamer. His face wears heartbreak like a badge of honor.
I know so many people who hate Amanda Peet and I have never understood why. She almost always gets stuck in the girlfriend role, but never feels out of place or unbelievable. Here she does what is required to do, be supportive in the cast.
But director Menno Meyjes walks a very narrow tightrope here. He could have gone too mushy or too magical but never takes the project off the single strand of narrative focus. By just letting the story unfold on its own merits, he does justice to the idea.
Yes this film could easily be K-PAX with a kid, but I think that is something more substantive. Though it does run on a bit too long and has some moments where the emotional baggage is forced into the overhead compartment of story, the entire experience is enjoyable. Call me crazy, but I just bought into Martian Child.
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