this movie would have been great if it had just been about a struggling child actor who wanted his last role to be helping kids. it would have been greater if he had just been an alcoholic... and greater still if he was struggling with accepting his skin cancer.... but the apex of this movie is the underlying struggle with identity. the main character david is a wounded adult who never grew out of his rocky youth that was desecrated with fame. his identity was never allowed to develop and so his adulthood was constantly categorized as juvenile or immature. this movie.... is incredibly interesting and important and shocked me at every turn... i never expected something as brilliant as this when i saw the poster on netflix. his struggle accepting himself translated into a passionate need to help others, but not adults-- kids. he wanted to help kids, teens, because no one had helped him. he struggles with finding himself, because he doesnt want to be himself. while he goes about everything ass backwards and just plain WRONG theres something beautiful about how he listens to these kids, about how he's almost entirely willing to give up himself to make even one kid happy... this movie was.... amazing. one of my favorite films to DATE and i will have to rewatch it to do an in depth gender/sexuality analysis, because who was expecting this film to touch on gender theory?? wreck me!!
this movie would have been great if it had just been about a struggling child actor who wanted his last role to be helping kids. it would have been greater if he had just been an alcoholic... and greater still if he was struggling with accepting his skin cancer.... but the apex of this movie is the underlying struggle with identity. the main character david is a wounded adult who never grew out of his rocky youth that was desecrated with fame. his identity was never allowed to develop and so his adulthood was constantly categorized as juvenile or immature. this movie.... is incredibly interesting and important and shocked me at every turn... i never expected something as brilliant as this when i saw the poster on netflix. his struggle accepting himself translated into a passionate need to help others, but not adults-- kids. he wanted to help kids, teens, because no one had helped him. he struggles with finding himself, because he doesnt want to be himself. while he goes about everything ass backwards and just plain WRONG theres something beautiful about how he listens to these kids, about how he's almost entirely willing to give up himself to make even one kid happy... this movie was.... amazing. one of my favorite films to DATE and i will have to rewatch it to do an in depth gender/sexuality analysis, because who was expecting this film to touch on gender theory?? wreck me!!
