This WWII-era boy-and-his-dog story works so hard at being nostalgic comfort food, it’s tough to swallow. Made a year after author/memoirist Willie Morris died, you can almost hear the studio pitch: Southern-Fried CHRISTMAS STORY meets TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. (With a score shadowing the latter film’s Elmer Bernstein classic soundtrack.) Megged with squishy overindulgence by Jay Russell (from the Lasse Hallström School of Audience Pandering*), the period detail is grit-free, homogenized stuff, like a Live-Action Disney pic from the ‘60s. Even the pup comes pre-house-broken, and never needs to be fed or walked. In lieu of real character building quotidian chores, we get ginned-up boys’ adventures and adult-generated crises designed to thrust Frankie Muniz’s non-conformist kid into the community. And what a community! Jim Crow era Mississippi. Made in 2000, a bit late in the day to present such an idyllic view of segregation & second-class citizenship. Even the acting, with the exception of Kevin Bacon (superb even with a questionable accent), happy to skim the surface. Like everything else in here.
WATCH THIS, NOT THAT: *Hallström is at his best in his calling card pic, MY LIFE AS A DOG/’85. Or rather, parts of it.
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