randymoon
Joined Feb 2010
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randymoon's rating
I haven't seen this movie since 1975, so I need to track it down. I look forward to seeing it with much older and wiser eyes. Just thinking about it brings back warm nostalgic feelings which I suppose, based upon some of the responses here, are going to be replaced by disappointment.
I know we always expect the book to be better. But the movie made some changes and additions that were unnecessary. For example, the movie includes a gag scene in which the policeman, played by Harland Williams, for no apparent reason, interrupts Opal and her friends playing baseball. Winn-Dixie attacks the policeman who is unable to get back in his cruiser without having his pants pulled down and his bright red boxers exposed to public view. There is no such scene in the book. It's played for slapstick but isn't in the least funny. Worse than that, however, is that it completely contradicts what we've seen from Winn-Dixie up to that point: a gentle, friendly dog without a trace of viciousness (expect for hunting mice!). Opal's grinning and laughing at the chaos in the grocery story at the beginning is not in the book, and in the movie seems forced and unrealistic. And the manager who is afraid of dogs gives one of the worst acting performances I've seen in the movies in a long, long time. I understand he's a local and has never acted before. Well, it shows.
Director Wang seemed to be in a hurry to get through the story as quickly as possible. leaving no time for the character development we find in the book. Otis, miscast as Dave Matthews, doesn't come across as shy and awkward as he needs to be. Instead he merely comes across as rude. We don't get much of a sense of the conflict between Opal and the Dewberry boys so that when the one boy begins making friendly overtures to Opal, it just seems confusing. Much of the behavior of all the characters comes across as unmotivated and superficial, what you might expect from a director who was in too much of a hurry to worry about realistic acting.
The movie is fine, I guess, for a five-year-old viewer, but it could have been so much better from a more skilled director.
Director Wang seemed to be in a hurry to get through the story as quickly as possible. leaving no time for the character development we find in the book. Otis, miscast as Dave Matthews, doesn't come across as shy and awkward as he needs to be. Instead he merely comes across as rude. We don't get much of a sense of the conflict between Opal and the Dewberry boys so that when the one boy begins making friendly overtures to Opal, it just seems confusing. Much of the behavior of all the characters comes across as unmotivated and superficial, what you might expect from a director who was in too much of a hurry to worry about realistic acting.
The movie is fine, I guess, for a five-year-old viewer, but it could have been so much better from a more skilled director.