BEFORE: This was going to be the slot for "The Big Bad Fox and Other Tales", with Matthew Goode doing a voice, and I'd be back on animated animals, but I'm tabling it for a few reasons. I almost tabled it because I'd recorded it off cable, and the on-screen guide listed only the actors from the French version, so for a brief moment I thought I'd perhaps recorded the wrong version, a subtitled one instead of an English-dubbed one. (This happened a couple years back with "My Life as a Zucchini") But no, I had the English version on my DVR, that wasn't the problem.
My remaining January schedule is too packed, thanks to adding extra Bergman films last week - so I either had to double-up again tonight, or cut something, and the middle film of a Matthew Goode trilogy was the most obvious choice, if I cut "The Big Bad Fox" the rest of my plan for January could proceed without any changes. Then I found out that one of the three stories in "The Big Bad Fox" was Christmas-themed AND the film shares an actor with another film on my Christmas list, so that sealed the deal, that film is rescheduled for Christmas time. It's a bit weird because it's still January, way too early to be thinking about my Christmas schedule. But I think we get two Christmases this year, to make up for last year's being cancelled due to the pandemic - so I'd better have some films ready to go.
Seriously, though, I can't aim for a specific Christmas film now, there are just too many twists and turns coming up in the 2021 schedule, I'm sure. But I can keep a few holiday-themed films in mind, and try to land on two or three of them in December, that's worked out well the last couple of years. So I've got something of a target list for Christmas, and right now it includes "The Big Bad Fox" and a few other tales.
Matthew Goode carries over from "Official Secrets" - and since I first noticed this actor in "Watchmen" he's turned up in some of the oddest places, plus each time he looks almost completely different, or is that just me? He turned up in three films last year, and I nearly didn't recognize him in "The Lookout". I think he's one of those chameleon actors, like Michael Stuhlbarg, who's like a visual blank slate and maybe tries to sort of disappear into each role.
THE PLOT: Two scientists raise three children contrarily to their genetic tendencies to prove the ultimate power of nurture over nature.
AFTER: This is an odd little film, but I think it just might be a great film for a January during a pandemic - I already dealt with zoo cages this week being an appropriate pandemic metaphor, but this one shows a character, late in the film, after everything's turned to crap and this family experiment has essentially failed, alone in his house, with no furniture, just staring into space, and he's probably been like that for days, if not weeks. When his wife returns to update him, he suddenly wants to look like he's doing something, so he begins bouncing a basketball against the wall. Right, that should make him look productive. She soon deduces that he clearly hasn't left the house, or done much of anything, in a very long time - and I know that feeling. We're all going to have setbacks in life, and some of them may bring us down to the point where we just want to spend a week in bed - but what's unique about the world right now is just how many people are going through that feeling at the same time.
But let me back up a bit - this story is set back in the 1970's, and two really geeky scientists fall in love with each other - during long nights together in the lab, sure, I could see how that could happen. Together they attend a lecture where they are encouraged to keep pushing the scientific envelope, think outside the box with their experiments and this hits home - so they decide to turn their lives into one giant experiment, raise their child and adopt two more, while nurturing them in directions that are contrary to their "genetic tendencies", whatever that means. I certainly don't believe that back in 1977 they could look at someone's DNA and predict what occupation they would have, genetic science was still in its infancy then. It's only recently that they can parse through your genome and tell you what diseases you might be more susceptible to. What they're talking about here is the theory that if everybody in your family is a scientist, you're likely to become a scientist, too. So the couple raises their biological son to be an artist instead of a scientist, and the girl from the low-intelligence heritage to think like a scientist.
The problem is, there are just too many variables here to really think of this as a coherent experiment. We are our DNA, sure, but we're also a collection of experiences and events that happen to us. A girl in 1977 might have several struggles to overcome on the road to being an adult scientist, not just her heritage and her family's economic status, but also a gender bias in what we now call STEM education, science teachers who are male and might favor the males in his classroom. Plus there's no one specific set of events that puts someone on the road to a particular career, many, many other factors could be involved that would encourage curtail that path, a family could be forced to move to a better or worse school district, something could happen in the scientific field that would increase or decrease job opportunities or scholarships, etc.
But again, this is an experiment, and scientific advances were never made without a bit of trial and error. Emphasis on error here, because the couple and their three children are sent off to live in a remote house, somewhere where it always seems to be snowing, and the kids are home-schooled in this endless winter environment. (See? Perfect film for this month, kids getting home-schooled during wintertime...) For a very long time everything seems normal to the kids - I guess however weirdly you're raised, to you it seems normal, because you just don't know any other way. Plus, how are you supposed to tell if your parents are making you part of some grand scientific experiment, or if they're just strange or unusual people? For all these kids know, every family has a strange rich uncle, who's not really their uncle, who flies in via helicopter to give them intelligence tests every few months.
One reviewer compared this to a Wes Anderson film, possibly because it fits into that "quirky" vibe, or maybe it reminded that person of the teen awkwardness of "Moonrise Kingdom", mixed with the educational situation seen in "Rushmore", or something. Maybe you could imagine these kids growing up to become the screwed-up adults played by Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow and Luke Wilson in "The Royal Tenenbaums". I got more of a Bergman vibe off of this one, not directly, but maybe that was due to the winter setting and depicting a family living right by a lake, like in "Through a Glass Darkly". Both films also depicted kids putting on a home-made play for adult parents. To me this is the type of childhood that Bergman's characters would think back on when they're older, with much regret, of course, while they sit around and drink tiny glasses of port and discuss whether God hates them.
But no, this one comes from Canada, not Sweden. It only got a limited release and doesn't seem to have many fans out there, but I'd say give it a go if you can before it disappears from Netflix. What's funny is that I ended up bookending the week with "Fanny and Alexander" and this film, and they have a lot in common, in a way. That Bergman film contrasted the different ways that two kids were treated by their father and their stepfather, and Alexander developed an interest in theater and filmmaking, much like Luke here. Both films sort of ended up making the same point, that we're born into a particular family and situation, and then there will be changes along the way that help determine who we become and what we end up doing later in life.
Also starring Toni Collette (last seen in "Hearts Beat Loud"), Andreas Apergis (last seen in "Death Wish"), Jordan Poole, Megan O'Kelly, Anton Gillis-Adelman, Michael Smiley (last seen in "The Lobster"), Suzanne Clément, Fionnula Flanagan (last seen in "The Others"), Vincent Hoss-Desmarais (last seen in "RED 2"), Tyrone Benskin (last seen in "Bad Santa 2"), Owen Bruemmer, Anik Matern.
RATING: 6 out of 10 Archie comics
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