Now Showing at Sawtell Cinema

We Bought A Zoo
Rating: PG Running Time: 2 hrs 03 mins

Session Times: Sun 5-Feb 10:00 am, Wed 8-Feb 5:15 pm

Synopsis:

This holiday season, acclaimed filmmaker Cameron Crowe (Jerry Maguire, Almost Famous) directs an amazing and true story about a single dad who decides his family needs a fresh start, so he and his two children move to the most unlikely of places: a zoo. With the help of an eclectic staff, and with many misadventures along the way, the family works to return the dilapidated zoo to its former wonder and glory.

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
Grief driven young widower buys a rural property on a whim 6 months after his wife's death - the place has a private zoo on it. Is this wise? No, says his older brother Duncan Mee (Thomas Haden Church), but Benjamin (Matt Damon) ignores the advice and takes his two children to the zoo. Little Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) loves it, but her older brother Dylan (Colin Ford) hates it. But then Dylan has been having father-son issues, and feels unloved and angry.

So begins the story based on real events, in which an attempted escape from the pain of life leads to pain of a different kind - and finally to acceptance. Damon is in fine form as the young father who is at a loss what to do with either the little girl or his teenage son, or indeed his life. He feeds off his grief and has flashbacks (of the cinematic kind) to the 'happy families' memories, as well as his romantic images of Katherine (Stephanie Szostak). We could have done with less of these overly sentimental and somewhat hackneyed scenes, but maybe director Cameron Crowe was told by the producers to amp up the feel good factor.

Tiny Jones is wonderful as the cute little girl, wiser than her years but just short of precocious, and Ford is tops as the angry young boy, who eventually finds his father has some rather useful words of wisdom for him. Hayden Church is his likeable larrikin self as the older brother with a wry way of offering guidance - and reality checks which Benjamin ignores.

Scarlett Johansson is lively and natural as the head keeper of the zoo animals in a role that doesn't demand much - but it has to be right. Elle Fanning is a sparkling presence with her flashlight smile as the teenager who has a crush on Dylan. Great support from the rest of the cast, and that includes all the animals, from a grisly bear to a lion, from a porcupine to a capuchin monkey - and many others.

The complications of a grieving young father and his kids adds the ballast to the otherwise slight story of a family buying a small functioning zoo, even with the zoo inspector turned into an overdone villain for effect. Oddly enough, the two major elements don't conflict, but work off each other. However, there are some basic flaws in the filmmaking that detract from our total engagement, such as the scene when the family is shown the property by the real estate agent (a wonderful cameo by J. B. Smoove); not only is the house uninhabited, there is no-one looking after the animals, and we don't understand why. (There is no reason except to avoid introducing the zoo volunteers later...)

There is a useful bar around which the characters gather at times, but we don't know where it is in relation to the house. Nor do we learn where the pizza delivery comes from as we're repeatedly told the nearest shops are 9 miles away.

These are relatively unimportant flaws, but they lessen the film's veracity. On the other hand, the animals are wonderfully real and always watchable.