Safe Spaces

Really went into this movie expecting to hate it, due to the low ratings, and have a few times been pleasantly surprised after reading bad reviews only to find that something clicked with me and I enjoyed it despite what others thought, so I decided to check it out.

I don't usually enjoy Justin Long, but he's really grown on me as an actor, Fran Drescher was great and looked amazing, Lynn Cohen, who played the grandmother was delightful, as always, and the character of the sister was top notch.

I enjoyed the relationships between the siblings, I loved their love and support of each other and their grandmother in her final days and I found the whole movie in general. enjoyable, funny, bittersweet and very engaging.

An interesting look at the intersection of millennial culture and academia. Justin Long and his character's family are an interesting study.

Saw it on a plane, so I couldn't watch until the very end... But it was painful to watch because all of the characters were SO annoyingly over sensitive and victim-like. I predict it will become a cult classic with time (as did 'Idiocracy' have a resurgence when Trump was elected) and will be viewed with affection as it depicts a time before EVERYONE lost their minds to the tyranny of left-wing liberal political agendas...

For me, watching and enjoying a movie requires that I either (1) like some of main characters or (2) like the story or (3) find the cinematography interesting. Most good movies all three are satisfied.

For this movie I wasn't able to find any of those. While I generally like Justin Long, here as an Adjunct Professor teaching writing, in this movie I didn't like him at all. The dialog is generally uninspired and bland. And I had forgotten how annoying Fran Drescher's nasal delivery is.

I had moderately good hopes for this movie but I found it to be mostly a waste of time. Life is too short to watch too many mediocre movies.

I watched it at home on DVD from my public library.

There is a good story here. How a family pulls together during a trying time, despite their differences, conflicts and foibles to love and care for each other. There is nonsense here that I fear may be an all too real ultra sensitivity that pervades liberal campuses. While the traumatic difficulties that one may face in their youth may be regrettable, there is no way that the Jennifer Mann character will be able to function in real life if she thinks she can live in a bubble of protection from someone hurting her delicate sensitivities. In some ways this is a powerful contrasts. There is family where there is acceptable and strengthening of backbone and character by the sibling rivalries that persist. Without realizing it, perhaps this movie is a meaningful criticism of the politically correct culture that weakens our fiber and a call to family to strengthen it. Put the challenges Agatha and her story of escaping Nazi Germany, learning a new language and a new life, and facing death and the strength she showed in contrast with the "triggered" response of students seemingly can't deal with the simple realities of seeing another person feel bad to the point of threatening a professor's job. A normal human being would simply experience the class, discount the remarks that the professor made, perhaps utter a "meh" and go one with their own life. The contrast of Agatha to the youth of today is damning.