Feeling Minnesota (1996) :: Reviews
| ARYA | my review (2013-12-27 22:06:09) |
 Forum Posts: 2836 Comments: 74 Reviews: 11 | This is for sure a black comedy, but how can you NOT love a story where all the bad people go away? I have heard that it is flawed, but I see the "fun" in this most dysfunctional family tale of love at first sight. The casting is inspired with major chemistry between Reeves & Diaz. The sound tract is pretty good too. I'd rather re-watch this movie than most anything I've ever seen. |
| ARYA | Wonderful summary of FM. Thank you! (2011-09-04 23:55:14) |
| Forum Posts: 2836 Comments: 74 Reviews: 11 | December 22, 2003 Summary A tale of transformation. Content This is a remarkable movie, not only in it's unusual and very funny way of making the points that it does, but in that it is written from a point of view that is almost never seen from the all-too-privileged aristocracy to which most of the movie industry's writers and directors belong. This movie is almost painfully insightful into the mental state of hopelessness which traps people into sordid lives, particularly those who are raised in that sort of life and have never experienced anything else. The characters Jjaks and Freddie not only manage to envision a way out, together they fight their way to some measure of freedom in the end. They do so using the only tools and behaviors they know, which means that it is all very sordid indeed, but their goals are so much more noble than anything that could be expected from that environment, that it is very close to a miracle that they exist at all. It should be noted that those characters who have chosen to embrace the sordid life instead of resist it are relatively thriving at the beginning of the film (Sam, Ben Costikyan, etc.) Jjaks, who has been to prison before, may once have been like them, but if so, something must have happened to change him (before the story in the movie?). The movie shows Jjaks' transformation, opening his capacity for compassion and love for another, and finally gaining the courage to hope. Keanu Reeves really nails his character admirably, playing someone who feels more than is really safe to feel in his environment, and has developed a deeply engrained habit of hiding his feelings. Look carefully for the use of color to symbolize the different stages in his transformation, and the meaning of the dog too. from here |