A Grieving Dad Finds Renewed Purpose in We Bought a Zoo

My aunt Barb and I share a love of zoos, so I wasn’t surprised that she decided to rent We Bought a Zoo when I visited her and my uncle recently. As soon as the titular zoo came into view, both of us started fantasizing about how cool it would be to live in such a place. The landscape and the ragtag collection of animals combine to make a very appealing playground for Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), the adorable little girl whose father is the film’s main character.

Matt Damon is the most likable I’ve ever seen him as Benjamin Mee, a plucky widower who wants to make a better life for Rosie and her surly pre-adolescent brother Dylan (Colin Ford). While sunny Rosie seems to be adjusting fairly well to her mother’s death, it’s transformed Dylan into a borderline delinquent. While Benjamin processes his own grief, he longs for a way to restore the lost connection between him and his son.

Buying the zoo seems like a crazy idea, but Benjamin and Rosie both fall head over heels in love with the place at first glance. Dylan objects to being uprooted, while Benjamin’s pragmatic brother Duncan (Thomas Haden Church), an accountant, foresees financial disaster if he goes through with it. But Benjamin has fixed on a dream, and even though the zoo is in shambles and will require thousands of dollars and hours of manpower to get it up to code for inspection and a summer opening, he is determined to make a go of it. Is it a sustainable goal, or is he about to fall flat on his face?

Cameron Crowe directed and co-wrote this earnest charmer of a family film, which was based on a true story, though the family was transplanted from England to Southern California and the wife’s death, which served as the impetus for all the events in the film, did not occur in real life until after the zoo had been purchased. Here, buying the zoo is very much about this dad and his children making a new beginning and slowly learning to let go, never forgetting the warm, loving wife and mother whose early death stuck such a painful blow but allowing themselves to move forward with optimism.

Rated PG, the movie contains little material that could be considered objectionable. Death is certainly a prominent theme, but it’s dealt with gently, and I imagine that children going through a grieving process might find a lot to relate to here. Damon anchors the film with a sense of determination and good humor, while Jones steals every scene with her sage and funny proclamations and Ford’s angst keeps the family’s recent tragedy fresh in viewers’ minds. Church is a consistent source of humor with his sad-sack demeanor and snarky remarks. The bond between these very different brothers is one of my favorite aspects of the movie.

Of course, romance comes into the storyline a bit, though it’s really not the focus. As the film begins, Benjamin is still seeing his wife (Stephanie Szostak) everywhere he goes, and the last thing on his mind is starting a new relationship. However, he is thrown into constant contact with Kelly (Scarlet Johansson), his property’s no-nonsense head zookeeper, and a mutual affection gradually forms. Meanwhile, Dylan, still disgusted by the family’s move, attempts to deal with the confusion of a first romance with Kelly’s tomboyish niece Lily (Elle Fanning). I think I actually enjoyed this pairing more, partly because of the opportunity it presented for Benjamin to offer some wise advice as the rift between father and son starts to heal.

We Bought a Zoo is a sunny, funny, touching movie about family, grief and impossible dreams. Beautiful animals, a quirky zoo staff and a dad deeply devoted to his children and his new venture make this a truly endearing film. I watched it with my aunt, uncle and grandparents, and we all gave it the thumbs up. At just over two hours, it might be a little on the long side for young children, but it truly is a film that the whole family can enjoy together.

The Coen Brothers Tackle the Old West in True Grit

“Jeff Bridges is really hot.” So proclaimed my mom the other night as I perused Hulu to find the clip of him singing a duet of Silver Bells with Cookie Monster during his gig as Saturday Night Live host. My brother Nathan and I turned raised eyebrows in her direction, and she hastened to add that she meant he was a hot commodity at the moment. We’ve been teasing her mercilessly ever since, but she’s certainly right about that. Yesterday, Nathan and I had to choose between two movies featuring Bridges in a major role. Had we gone with TRON: Legacy, it might not have seemed quite so preposterous to imagine the term “hot” applied, in another sense of the word, to Jeff Bridges. But in True Grit, the Coen Brothers’ remake of the classic John Wayne movie, the idea was beyond laughable.

Bridges portrays Rooster Cogburn, a U. S. Marshal with a reputation as the meanest dead-eye around. He’s a grizzly old cuss who drinks and smokes too much, and it doesn’t particularly concern him that he may be a little too quick with that trigger finger. He does things his way and refuses to apologize, and trying to have a conversation with him inevitably entails exasperation, since his gravelly rants are rarely more than half-comprehensible. He spits. He snarls. He spends vast quantities of time in the outhouse. He’s just plain grungy. He is so not hot. He is, however, wonderful to watch.

Rooster spends most of the movie on the trail of Tom Chaney, the low-life who murdered the wrong kid’s dad. With spunk reminiscent of L. M. Montgomery’s Anne Shirley – whom she resembles in her long braids, hat and coat – and a laser focus like The Princess Bride’s Inigo Montoya, Mattie Ross is determined to see her father’s killer brought to justice. After an impressive show of her shrewd business sense with a local horse trader, Mattie sets her sights on the reluctant Rooster, ultimately convincing him to take on her challenge. What he doesn’t realize is that he’s also agreed to a pint-sized traveling companion, whether he wants her or not.

Rooster and Mattie seem strangely suited to each other. They’re both tough as nails, and they make a good team. Neither thinks much of LaBoeuf, a Texas Ranger played with a preening swagger by Matt Damon. He’s pretty hot on himself when they first meet, and he views Mattie as nothing more than a nuisance in the culmination of his long quest to track down Chaney for other reasons. Mattie isn’t interested in his help if it means that Chaney will hang for killing a Senator and not her father. Rooster simply finds all his bragging tedious. They become competitors in a heated race, with Chaney the prize. But as the Wild West brings each into contact with nefarious scoundrels, all three pursuers will find hidden grit and a new respect for each other.

Hailee Steinfeld has already begun receiving accolades for her role as the determined 14-year-old Mattie, and I have no dispute with that. This is a girl intelligent beyond her years, so Steinfeld has lots of tricky dialogue to pull off with conviction. Steely resolve is her baseline emotion, but we see her break out of that from time to time, particularly when various people inspire her sympathies. In both this and No Country For Old Men, the movie that established me as a Coen Brothers fan, Josh Brolin plays a man who spends most of the movie being followed. In the former, he’s a pretty good guy who made a really big mistake. In this case, he’s still not wholly unsympathetic, but Tom Chaney is not a man of virtue. Neither is his current boss, gang leader Lucky Ned Pepper, a crusty criminal played by Barry Pepper.

Robert Duvall played that role in the original movie, which I didn’t realize until after I watched it; seeing that on IMDb made me chuckle because Pepper’s performance reminded me quite a bit of Duvall. Never having seen the original movie, I can’t really make comparisons. I understand that much of the dialogue remains intact, so I’m not sure how much I can credit the Coens for their screenplay, but I thought it was an exceptionally well-written movie. I often had to strain a bit to understand the dialogue, since, aside from Mattie’s, most of it came filtered through a fairly thick accent, but it was worth it to catch those careful words. As we headed home, my dad and brother wondered whether 19th-century outlaws were really as eloquent as this movie makes them out to be. The dialogue is often a thing of beauty.

And it’s funny. Like No Country, it’s populated with quirky characters, perhaps none more so than a medicine man played by Ed Corbin who turns up on horseback dressed in a bearskin. Dakin Matthew is a hoot as the increasingly flustered Colonel Stonehill, who simply can’t match wits with this tough teenager, and Jarlath Conroy has a brief but memorable role as an eccentric Irish undertaker. Most of the humor, however, comes from Rooster’s random ramblings, Mattie’s cleverness and LaBoeuf’s self-adulation, especially when any two of the three clash. However, these personalities also are at the heart of the movie’s most touching scenes.

The film is beautifully shot from start to finish, and it didn’t surprise me one bit to learn that Roger Deakins, whose work so impressed me in No Country and other recent movies, was the cinematographer. The countryside looks bleak but also somehow appealing, in a stirring the pioneer spirit sort of way. Complementing it well is Carter Burwell’s score, which incorporates several traditional hymns, particularly Leaning on the Everlasting Arms. “Nothing in this world is free but the grace of God,” reflects an older Mattie in the opening narration, and her faith is a thread that runs through the movie, which begins with an epigraph from Proverbs.

I loved No Country For Old Men, and I was surprised about it, since it was so very violent. True Grit is an old-fashioned Western, so there are a few shoot-outs, but there’s only one scene I would really call gruesome, and it passes quickly. The movie is rated a mild PG-13, and only on rare occasions is the "13" really earned. Profanity scarcely slips out of even the uncouth Rooster’s mouth. There is drinking and smoking aplenty, but that hardly seems worth mentioning in a movie set in the Old West. This flick feels like a respectful throwback, with only occasional bits of subtle humor taking aim at the genre. It’s the story of two, sometimes three, distinct characters taking a grueling journey together and gaining a deeper appreciation for each other and understanding of themselves. I’m still looking forward to TRON. But I’m very glad we saw True Grit, and if there was any doubt before, I can now say with certainty that when the Coen Brothers make another movie, I will be buying a ticket.