We Bought a Zoo
Cameron Crowe is one of those filmmakers that, I can imagine, turns some critic’s stomachs in knots. On the one hand, there’s a refreshing intelligence and wit to his writing, as is evident in instant classics such as “Say Anything,” “Jerry Maguire,” and “Almost Famous.” On the other hand, even his best films have moments of treacly sentimentality and gooey emotions that it’s enough to make a viewer sick just watching it; this was one of the fundamental problems of his 2005 film, “Elizabethtown,” but even in its flawed, theatrical version, that movie still had moments of classic Crowe.
For his first film since that 2005 misfire, Crowe moves to a less personal story (for him), and adapts the memoirs by Benjamin Mee, a journalist who takes a break from writing about other people’s adventures to have one of his own after his wife dies, leaving him with two children who prove to be tough nuts to crack. Mee is played by Matt Damon in the film, and between this film and “The Adjustment Bureau,” how refreshing it has been to see what Damon can do with an ordinary joe character again; since he hit it bit with the “Bourne” trilogy, they feel like they’ve been few and far between. When the city doesn’t really have much to offer Mee and his broken family anymore, he buys a house out of the way which happens to also be a small zoo. Now, he holds the fates of not just his family but also the people who have tended the zoo over the years, as well as the animals themselves, in his hands. Does he have what it takes, or will he run away from the responsibility?
Well, since it’s based on a true story, you probably know the answer already, but in Crowe’s capable hands as director and co-writer (with Aline Brosh McKenna), it’s a pleasure to watch it unfold, not to mention an old-fashioned tearjerker. And Damon isn’t the only actor who shines: three cheers to Scarlett Johansson, whose zoo worker is arguably her most approachable, appealing character since 2001’s “Ghost World”; Thomas Hayden Church as Benjamin’s pragmatic accountant brother; Colin Ford and Maggie Elizabeth Jones are engaging as Mee’s children, who have very different reactions to the idea of owning a zoo; and Elle Fanning as a young girl who grows attached to Ford’s Dylan. It’s not exactly an instant classic like several of Crowe’s other films, but “We Bought a Zoo” has a funny and emotional story to tell that I enjoyed from start to finish.
