Bennett's Song

This is one of those movies that sucks you in. The direction, writing, acting, and elements like art direction are all over the place. My wife and I almost bailed about 20 minutes into the film.

The quirky characters, and basically a good story kept us in. At times a scene would work, and work well and then the next scene would be a disaster with over the top writing, a lack of direction and non-existent acting.

There are fact dumps, over the top PC moments, a very scary post plastic Tara Reid, a PC Dennis Haskins are some of the negatives, yet the chemistry with some of the children, and story line make parts of this movie work.

I've seen this reviewed as a romantic dramady which is about right.

If you like a character driven movie, with some interesting characters you might like this movie.

Acting in this movie is nonexistent. The actors just flatly recite their lines.

Things that are supposed to be inspirational are presented in inconsistent, problematic or outright offensive ways. For example--a girl is deaf and she's shown speaking in "deaf voice" in one scene, but in others she speaks normally. Nobody noticed that in editing?? She's taken to a dentist who uses sign language but then after a few seconds into the scene, the dentist stops signing and has an opaque mask over her mouth, so lip reading would also be impossible. Yet the "deaf" girl can still understand her as she talks.

The grandmother is portrayed as having advanced dementia. She seems in need of care herself. Yet she's entrusted to supervise some very small children on an outing to a park, with no other adults, and everyone just smiles as she blithely remarks that they keep her young.

Challenges for the children are brought up late in the story, then promptly handwaved away. The deaf girl wants to play in a band but can't hear the beat. So a sibling immediately proposes a technological solution and a potential source of conflict or character growth disappears within seconds of being introduced.

The idea of the romance between two single parents is sweet but there aren't enough developments in this story to create a convincing relationship.

I'd skip this one.

This movie really surprised me. I understand some challenges can arise when working with younger talent, not the case for this picture. These young actors shined. The story was wonderfully written and the picture was put together well. The lead Aphrodita Nikolovski was excellent; as was young actress Calhoun Koenig.

Harley Wallen made a warm and special movie. Congrsts to the cast and crew.