The Book of Love

With a pretty decent cast, this film has enough to keep you watching but never going to be good enough that you'll be talking about it after it's finished. Not surprising that I actually watched from one of those free channels apps that usually play "handed out" movies that don't get viewers elsewhere. Not a bad film by any means and both Sudeikis and Maisie Williams are thoroughly solid throughout.

"Most stories ain't true, and usually don't start where you'd expect." Henry (Sudeikis) is a boring husband who does everything by the book every though his wife tries to change him. After a tragic accident takes her like Henry is lost and has no idea what to do. When he meets the girl (Williams) that his wife was talking about he decides to help her complete her dream, and hopefully find himself in the process. This is a very good movie that really shows how heartfelt Sudeikis can be. There are very few movies that have come out recently that show true heart and how good people can truly be. This is one of them. The movie itself is, although very predictable and generic, good and very much worth seeing. After watching weeks and weeks of depressing movies like Manchester By The Sea, Nocturnal Animals and Moonlight this one seems like a much needed break. Although this is also very sad in some parts this one seemed to have what the others didn't…hope. Overall, worth seeing and I think its only a few years away from Sudeikis really breaking out and getting an Oscar nomination. I give this a high B.

I chanced upon The Book of Love while channel-switching, saw Maisie Williams, looked for the repeat and watched it. I very nearly didn't because the synopsis made it look like a Hallmark production (bereaved architect heals himself by helping troubled teenager build a raft to sail round the world) but I thought, "What the hell, it's Arya" and watched it. I'm glad I did, because although it contains a slew of "heartwarming" clichés, it plays around with them in a very quirky way, to the extent that it's almost but not quite a satire on the genre. But there's more than playing around with clichés: the relationship between the two main characters is lovely, and there are some thought-provoking moments, though it's easy to skip over them.

That sweet and melancholic film, wrapped in sentimental madness, insane ideas and crazy behaviors, but this is how life should be lived, intensely crazy, with its magenta sneakers, its rafts in the air, towards the unexpected and adverse ... This film does more that entertains us, makes us reflect on life, and think about the people we love, a beautiful, sensitive and delicate journey... "A survey states that 67% of people die when no one is looking ... What I haven't discovered is how many people live while no one is looking "

The is movie about two strangers who have been left behind by the most significant person in their lives, and about how this bonds them as they engage in a bold project to sail from New Orleans to the Azores on a homemade raft.

Much of the wisdom is communicated by the voice-over commentary of 16 year-old Millie (Maisie Williams) who sounds like a deep south version of Christina Ricci's character in "The Opposite of Sex". The film is a little clumsy and Millie's accent is unnecessarily over-the-top but it is a good message and an overall pleasing effort.

Most profound is Millie's ambiguous statement about people dying when nobody is looking and living while nobody is watching. By which she is expounding on both their bold but by design unobserved rafting effort and on the human condition where many lives are lived without making a ripple in the fabric of society. And perhaps a third meaning, that the cool kids are so caught up in their clique that they have defined and made a cursory dismissal of everyone, blissfully unaware that awesome things are happening all around them.

There is a particularly interesting image early in the film, a shopping cart tipped over at the water's edge with a helium balloon trapped inside the inverted basket. Again this has lots of meanings, free spirit Penny trapped in the twisted metal of her wrecked car and unable to soar, Henry trapped by his grief, and Millie trapped by her defenses and unable to connect with anyone.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.