There Is Something About That Kid

It is seldom that my oldest daughter and I disagree about a movie. She couldn't get into it, but I loved it. Because she didn't want to review it, I decided that I would.

It looks like my old pal, Bruce Willis, has decided to give up the rough, tough, shoot 'em up movies, and is opting for the gentler, situation comedy type family roles. I am glad he is. "The Story of Us" was good; "The Sixth Sense" was very good with an unexpected ending; and I liked this movie too. In all of these movies, Willis has worked with children. Do you suppose he misses his own kids, now that he and Demi have split?

In this film, he plays Russell Duritz, a sophisticated, sarcastic and bitter forty year old. He is an image counselor. He has a short fuse, and is the master of tell-it-like-it-is, but amazingly, he is extremely successful. However, is he happy?

"No sir, he isn't, sir, no." He has headaches, and has developed a twitch in one eye.

Lily Tomlin plays his secretary who matches his snideness in her own inimitable style - let the chips fall as they may. Of course, she is so efficient that he cannot do without her.

Duritz doesn't get along well with his father. He sends him a check once in a while, but does not care to see him, or the rest of the family. He is entirely wrapped up in himself and his career.

One day he finds a red toy airplane that he remembers from his youth. He thinks his Dad left it in his office when he visited him there earlier to invite him to dinner and to ask his help in moving. Duritz had abruptly refused, and had let his Dad know that he had no interest in becoming involved with either his father or his sister.

Earlier, his consulting business had taken him to another city, and during the flight home he sat next to a woman who had just been hired as a TV news anchor in LA.(Jean Smith)
Because she insisted on talking to him, he offered her free advice on how to sell herself if she would only shut up and leave him alone. Later, she is able to repay his advice.

Back home, he kept getting glimpses of a chubby little eight year old kid. (Spencer Breslin) When he finally confronts the child, the boy tells him that he only came there to get his toy plane. Russ tells him that it is not his plane - that the red plane had been his since he was eight years old. During the confrontation, Duritz realizes that he is actually talking to himself when he was an eight year old child. The boy, he thinks, is a hallucination.

Russ stops to see a psychiatrist, and asks for medication that he can take which will entirely stop what is happening to him. He finally gets a prescription. After taking the pills, he is upset to learn that the boy is still there. The boy is as unhappy as Russ. He doesn't relish the thought of growing up to be a forty year old loser with a nervous twitch in his eye, who has no friends, and isn't even nice to his girl friend.

Russ and Rusty are, therefore, stuck with each other. Duritz tells the boy what will happen to him as he grows up, which is entirely different from what the boy wants his life to be.

As he talks and lives with the boy that he was, Duritz starts to remember things from his past. He remembers a three legged dog named Tripod. He remembers being bullied every recess by three "tough" bigger boys. He arranged for the boy to learn to punch - and when the tough kids came after Rusty on his birthday and ordered him to set Tripod on fire, the eight year old fought back, and held his own. Duritz was proud of the child, but realized that the worst part of "their" birthday was yet to come. His mother was called in to talk to the school principal about Rusty's fighting.

The child was unprepared for the reaction of his father. His Dad came out and berated the boy - telling him that he was trying to kill his mother with worry. The older Duritz was able to explain to little Rusty that his mother had a terminal illness, and his father knew he would have to raise the child by himself, and he was, himself, very frightened. The dad roughly ordered Rusty to stop crying - and the boy had never shed a tear since that time. It was only the forty year old that could at last understand, and explain why his father had acted as he did.

The tale winds on to it's conclusion. It is predictable, perhaps, but if it is a Disney production it should have a comfort-giving ending: and, after all, what is wrong with that?

Duritz girl friend in the movie was played by Emily Mortimer, and she did a creditable job of loving and disliking Russ Duritz. I know I have seen her act before, but for the life of me, I can't remember what she played in.

Jon Turtletub directed the movie, and it moved along and said, I think, what it was designed to say. The photography, while not spectacular, was good. Lily Tomlin was Lily Tomlin, funny as always. Spencer Breslin, the eight year old, won my heart, and Bruce again proved that he is as good in a family-type movie as he is in action films.

Is there anyone among us who hasn't wished at one time or another that they could go back in time and talk to the person he or she once were? I have often thought I wish I could talk to myself when I was sixteen or seventeen years old, and almost ready to make life choices. Would I have made the choices that I did? Probably, I would have. One thing I would have told myself is to "Follow your heart. If you want to see Paris, or Australia, or even the Grand Canyon, find a way to do it. If you want to try for a different career - don't give up but do it. If you want to tell someone how much you think of them, don't hold back, just do it." Time passes quickly, and that tomorrow you are waiting for just might not come before it is too late.

That, perhaps, is the moral of this movie.

It is now about 7:30PM on Father's day. To those of you young parents, I hope you had a very happy day being honored by your family while you honored your own Dad.