We Bought a Zoo (2011)
Directed by Cameron Crowe
Benjamin has lost his wife and, in a bid to start his life over, purchases a large house that has a zoo – welcome news for his daughter, but his son is not happy about it. The zoo is in need of renovation and Benjamin sets about the work with the head keeper and the rest of the staff, but, the zoo soon runs into financial trouble.
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What critics compared We Bought a Zoo to
Crowe said in interviews that his model for this movie was the Scottish director Bill Forsyth’s minor-key 1983 charmer Local Hero; he pays homage by casting Peter Riegert as Benjamin’s editor.
After the twin disappointments of Vanilla Sky (which critics generally liked but the public did not) and Elizabethtown (which was equally dismissed by critics and the general movie-going populace), Cameron Crowe has hunkered down in relative obscurity for six years.
But whatever good will he banked was spent heavily over the last decade, with the trippy mess of “Vanilla Sky” and the half-hour-too-long “Elizabethtown.”
But unlike Crowe's last couple of movies ("Vanilla Sky," "Elizabethtown"), there is something beautiful in the ungainliness.
Watching this movie, it's hard to believe Crowe once helmed such finely crafted pictures as Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous and the underrated Vanilla Sky.
If you're a fan of those earlier films, "Zoo" leaves you wondering whether Crowe was spooked by the mixed reaction to "Vanilla Sky" and "Elizabethtown" and chose to play it safe, remixing echoes of his usual screenwriting devices, in pursuit of a surefire hit.
Think Matt Damon in We Bought a Zoo, or Maggie Smith in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.
Elizabeth Banks ("Hunger Games") and John Michael Higgins ("Yes Man," "We Bought a Zoo" ) get zany as color commentators (their on-air banter echoes the ironic and iconic "Best of Show," in which Higgins' gay dog-handler was unforgettable).
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Then a seemingly-possessed mother tosses her baby into the lion's den at the zoo, leading Sarchie to have a We Bought a Zoo showdown with the jungle cats, and finally the discovery of a badly decomposed body in an apartment building.
The film has been dynamically shot by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (2011's " We Bought a Zoo "), while all other technical attributes place the setting squarely within the days of the late-'70s and early-'80s.