jeabraham

I'm a sucker for the coming of age stories. This one's about a high school girl who moves to a new neighbourhood, who befriends the autistic boy next door. The boy seems to be able to fly; he's obsessed with airplanes and spends long hours sitting in the window or standing on the roof.

The parts are all well played. There's lots of real emotion and a fantastic portrayal of real high school problems. Plus who doesn't dream of flying?

Some of these young actors went on to larger roles. Fred Savage looks a lot younger here than in The Princess Bride or The Wonder Years. Jason Priestley is barely recognizable.

A great family movie.

I loved a lot of things about this movie -- the setting close to home in the outstanding Alberta foothills, Paul Gross much younger then expected, the tender romance, the fairly unique plot, the notion of people trying to be good and not always succeeding. The Scottish vs. Ukranian prarie stereotypes. It's a good movie and there are lots of reasons to rent it.

It wasn't a great movie though -- a little too slow moving, production quality (at least on the DVD) is obviously made-for-TV, and the soundtrack was completely absent too often, and when it did show up it was too sappy. I would have preferred tighter edits, and less gratuitous cinematography (especially on video, which can't really do the Alberta ranchlands justice).

I'll stop short of calling for less gratuitous scenes of a semi-clad muscular Paul Gross working on the ranch, as I'm sure at least half of you will enjoy that.

It's a must-rent for anyone from Canadian Prarie Ranch Stock.

It reminds me a little bit of "The Hired Hand", but without the violence, without the hard edge, a sweeter romance, and I think better overall (sorry Mr. Fonda).

Doesn't begin to compare with "Bye Bye Blues" though.

I loved Kate Hudson in Almost Famous, and a few people told me this film was good, so we rented it.

We did enjoy it. It had some very funny moments, and some very tender moments. Kate Hudson was good, but don't expect "Almost Famous" style brilliance out of her in this one. The rest of the cast performs about the same -- good performances, nothing stellar. Except perhaps Joan Cusack; her performance was very good.

If you have kids, say, about ten years old and older this is a good film to watch together with them -- it introduces them to a few teen and adult issues (dating, death, etc.) and shows the sorts of tough decisions that parents sometimes have to make. And you'll have lots of fun laughing together too.