Personal Triumphs & Natural Disasters: At The Movies With Kasey
This week, I accidentally watched a trio of films that dwell on how loss can lead to reinvention, each in a different genre, including a romcom, an animated feature, and a documentary. Reader, I cried a lot in the making of this review.
First, The Life List focuses on Alex (Sofia Carson) and the aftermath of her beloved mother, Elizabeth’s (Connie Britton) death. Alex expected to take over her mother’s cosmetics company, but instead, the role of CEO is left to her sister-in-law, and Alex will only receive her inheritance if she completes the tasks on a Life List she created as a teenager. For each item Alex completes, her mother has left a corresponding video message. As the unusual inheritance is supervised by her attorney, Brad (Kyle Allen), Alex has to learn to play the piano, get out of a career rut, repair relationships, and find true love.
It was clear that this screenplay was adapted from a novel because the plotting structure and character development were so even and solid. Recently, films in this romcomy-tearjerky genre have felt so derivative and thinly developed. The Life List is still predictable and often cliched, but Adam Brooks’s screenplay was paced well and built toward emotional peaks organically.
Mostly, The Life List comes together around Sofia Carson’s performance. At one point, Brad points out that Alex always acts like she is a disaster and her life in shambles, but she is funny, smart, and lovable. Carson’s portrayal of Alex brings those threads together. She does a good enough job flailing that it’s easy to forget she has the safety net of family wealth, but she is kind and clever enough that we root for her. Her chemistry with Kyle Allen—who reminds me of Joseph Gordon-Levitt in this role—provides easygoing banter to balance the heavier moments. Plus, Connie Britton brings some Tammy Taylor energy to the family, too.
Along with the more cliched elements of the story, the film also shortchanges the rest of Alex’s family. Thematically, that fits because one of the problems is how her brothers and father felt sidelined by her relationship with her mother. Yet, I think there could have been less time on bad boyfriends (Sebastian De Souza, Michael Rowland) and more resolution between Alex and her brothers, Lucas (Dario Ladani Sanchez) and Julian (Federico Rodriguez).
The Life List fits comfortably within its genre in predictable ways, but it delivers on the formula with charming performances and enough heart that it drew tears. Plus, I loved the set design, as each different home depicted the characters’ ethos, and I wanted to live in most of them.
The Life List was written and directed by Adam Brooks, based on the novel by Lori Nelson Spielman. It runs 123 minutes and is rated PG-13. It is streaming on Netflix.
Whereas a mother having to cheer her daughter on from beyond the grave pulled on some of my deepest fears, Flow the Oscar-winning Latvian animated film introduced new ones to my daughter, who lasted twenty-five minutes before I had to turn it off. In the film, Cat is forced to form unlikely friendships when his world is radically changed by a flood.
The animation style of the film sometimes reminded me of an old computer program, but the expressiveness of Cat’s big eyes captured his struggles and triumphs even in the absence of any dialogue. Had my kiddo lasted beyond the initial events of the film, she would have seen a moving story of empathy and finding community in crisis while learning to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances. We will be giving it another try.
Flow was directed by Gints Zilbalodis, who wrote it with Matiss Kaza and Ron Dyens. It runs 85 minutes and is rated PG. It is streaming on Max.
Finally, If you have not yet watched the Netflix documentary, Twister: Caught in the Storm, I highly recommend it. The film may be especially frightening to watch as severe weather regularly crops up, but it also showcases several moving stories of community, resilience, and survival. Twister: Caught in the Storm uses interviews and archival footage to tell the story of the EF-5 tornado that struck Joplin, MO in 2011. The first-person accounts paired with footage from a local weather camera give the story a found-footage feeling while the tales of endurance and friendship showcase some of the best parts of the human spirit. It’s at turns terrifying and inspiring.
Twister: Caught in the Storm was written and directed by Alexandra Lacey. It runs 89 minutes and is rated TV-MA.
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