We Bought a Zoo

We Bought a Zoo

Cameron Crowe is a unique director.  In his stories the lead character usually goes through a once in a lifetime experience that shapes the rest of his or her life.  Crowe usually writes his own films and two in particular, Almost Famous and Elizabethtown, have been heavily inspired by his own life.  He only releases a film every few years.  I think Crowe likes to take time to insert his own voice into his films.

Crowe’s films are among some of my favorites.  Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous, and Vanilla Sky are near perfect in my opinion (though Vanilla Sky is a bit polarizing, I think it is brilliant and an improvement over the original Spanish film Open Your Eyes).  I can pop in any of those films and come out of them feeling great.  Say Anything is one of the best teen films I have ever seen.  Singles has a lot of entertaining insights about dating in the 90s and is Crowe's only film without a central character, though Bridget Fonda in particular stood out to me.  Elizabethtown was a little too self indulgent. It forced the audience to spend a lot of time with uninteresting characters but there were some good moments, especially the final sequence. 

Crowe’s dialogue is unique, in that people often say things that come straight from the heart, sometimes in a quirky way.  He has two other trademarks.  One is that he always makes music a character in his movies, due to a lifelong of it love forged in part from working as a teenager for Rolling Stone magazine.  He uses music to drive the characters actions, such as the famous scene in Say Anything, where John Cusack played “In Your Eyes” to Ione Sky’s character, or in Almost Famous where the characters release tension singing “Tiny Dancer” on a bus.  Crowe's other trademark is that he always has offbeat characters, often who are very pure of heart. 

Crowe’s latest film is We Bought a Zoo, which is loosely based on a true story of a man named Benjamin Mee.  In the film, Benjamin is played by Matt Damon as a recently widowed journalist who has an adventurous streak.  Mee has a seven year old daughter (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) and a fourteen year old son (Colin Ford) who decides to move from the town he lives in after his wife dies because there are too many painful memories of her.  He ends up buying a home that comes with a closed zoo and a staff.  He decides to go through with the challenge of putting the zoo on its feet and open it within a few months, the process of which is most of the focus of the film.  Benjamin’s daughter is adapting ok to the loss of her mother, who died of cancer but his son is struggling, expressing his grief through rebelling at school and by painting morbid pictures.

The staff at the zoo is played by Scarlet Johansson, Patrick Fugit (who played the lead in Almost Famous), and Angus McFadden (very different from his role as Robert the Bruce in Braveheart).  Thomas Haden Church plays Benjamin’s older brother who is an accountant and initially advises him against this investment.  The rest of the main roles are played by animals, as the zoo has a pretty wide assortment of them.  There is also a real estate agent, played by D.B. Smoove with the same energy he brings to the role of Leon in Curb Your Enthusiasm but with a lot more warmth.  He does not seem like an authentic agent but is so much fun I enjoyed his brief role.

The main theme of the film is happiness, and the film comes across a little surreal, the way many family films do.  Benjamin is trying to find happiness for himself and his kids after their horrible loss.  While he has been in adventurous situations before, he has never driven one himself.  Benjamin is mature enough to know that he needs to process the loss of his wife and find a way to adjust to continue to be a good role model for his kids.  He is also trying to make the zoo a success for the staff, who believe in it but has become disillusioned since it had closed.  This is the first family film Crowe has made and his ability to draw strong performances out of the child actors, especially Maggie Elizabeth Jones, gives a lot of weight to the picture.

Damon is terrific in the lead role.  It takes a particular skill to sell some of Crowe’s

dialogue and he is completely authentic as a man being tested heavily emotionally and

financially but who is committed to not letting it break him or his optimistic spirit.  I felt

this character may be the most like Crowe of all his lead characters.  Damon has played a lot of darker characters extremely well throughout his career but I always appreciate it when he gets to play charming.

Scarlet Johansson’s character Kelly is clearly destined to be a romantic interest for Benjamin but the film carefully approaches the subject since he is still dealing with the loss of his wife.  She is the most vocal about the need to provide for the animals and is able to guide Benjamin as a new zoo owner.  At a point when Benjamin needs to take time to make a crucial decision about one of the animals Kelly steps in and helps with his kids but never tries to replace their mom.  Benjamin is open about his grief to her and toward the end of the film (spoiler alert) when they do kiss it contains the promise of a future romance.   Johansson seems to be having a ball with the Crowe dialogue and projects a lot of intelligent warmth in the role. 

About two thirds of the way through the film Benjamin finally is able to get through to his son, Dylan.  Benjamin has pushed so hard to make this zoo work for himself and his kids that he has neglected to focus on Dylan and as such the boy has continued to have his problems.  Dylan had also not wanted to leave his friends behind and even in his frustration turned away the attention of a pretty girl who works at the zoo.  When he is able to communicate with Dylan telling him, among other things to accept the loss of his mother and tells him that he has tried to get Dylan’s friends to visit him, the boy’s mood improves and he becomes supportive of the zoo.  Up to this point Benjamin was more interested in big gestures than in truly listening to his son.  Dylan subsequently helps him find the strength to put an old tiger down, which Benjamin had been reluctant to do, feeling that he was giving up on him.

Benjamin lives by a mantra, which is if you can find 20 seconds of courage in a difficult situation you can accomplish anything.  Only Crowe would come up with a mantra like that but it resonates as a driving force for Benjamin and is a good approach to take in life.  Benjamin relates this to Dylan and it helps him find himself.

I liked the scene when the inspector is at the zoo and Scarlet Johansson and Angus McFadden have to hurriedly fix the gate for the lion enclosure. There is the threat of the inspector discovering the broken lock and also the risk that McFadden’s character could get attacked by the lion, or worse, that the lion could get loose.  The scene is played perfectly as comic suspense, due in part to McFadden’s character is experiencing a hangover.

There are a couple of things I did not like as much.  The scene (spoiler alert) where people cannot get to the zoo because of a fallen tree does not work as well since I did not believe people would just stand around waiting.  Also, the reconciliation between Dylan and the Elle Fanning character is a little heavy handed.  Lastly I found it hard to believe the scene in which Benjamin quit his job with two kids to provide for, even if he did have an inheritance.  But those are minor quibbles in an otherwise heartwarming story.

The final scene of the film (spoiler alert) is wonderful.  Benjamin gives his children a new memory of their mother.  Earlier he refused to enter a restaurant where he met his wife Katherine because it was too painful.  However, having gone through the adventure of making the zoo a success, he is in a happier place and brings his children to the restaurant and recreates the moment where he met her.  He had seen her from outside and using his 20 seconds of courage came inside and asked her if she would be willing to take an adventure on getting to know him.  His story is so descriptive that his children and the audience actually get their mother back for a moment.  She says “Why not?” which were the words that has guided Benjamin throughout his journey with the zoo. ***