The holidays are usually a great time for Hollywood to unleash schmaltzy, family friendly entertainment to the masses. This past Christmas was no different with the release of Steven Spielberg's War Horse and Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo. Both directors had been incognito for several years, but have returned with a vengeance.
Crowe wrote and directed one of his most critically acclaimed films in Almost Famous, based on his experiences as a teenage journalist for Rolling Stone. However, Vanilla Sky, his remake of Alejandro Amenabar's Open Your Eyes, met with mixed reactions and his rom-com Elizabethtown was a critical and commercial flop. Crowe's recent output includes a documentary on Pearl Jam and one on Elton John and this drama based on Benjamin Mee's memoirs, We Bought a Zoo: The Amazing True Story of a Young Family, a Broken Down Zoo, and the 200 Wild Animals That Changed Their Lives. A columnist for the Guardian, Mee, purchased the troubled Dartmoor Wildlife Park in 2006, which he ran with his wife (who later passed away from a brain tumor), brother, two children, and mother.
For the first time, Crowe isn't the sole credited writer. He rewrote the screenplay originally penned by Aline Brosh McKenna, who also adapted The Devil Wears Prada and I Don't Know How She Does It. Crowe transplants the story from foggy England to sunny Southern California and casts Matt Damon in the role of Benjamin Mee, a writer who has just lost his wife to cancer. Benjamin is left alone to care for his young daughter, Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), and teenage son, Dylan (Colin Ford). Dylan deals with the death of his mother by drawing gruesome pictures in art class and is eventually expelled for stealing.
Looking for a change, Benjamin quits his job and purchases an 18-acre farmhouse outside the city that actually houses a ramshackle zoo. The zoo is maintained by a skeleton crew led by the spunky Kelly Foster (Scarlett Johansson) and is home to a variety of species including tigers, peacocks, a lion, and a depressed grizzly bear. Rosie predictably falls in love with the place while Benjamin sees it as a new adventure, but Dylan hates it there, despite a budding romance with Kelly's shy cousin Lily (Elle Fanning). Kelly isn't enthusiastic either, seeing the new owner's lack of knowledge and experience as a severe detriment. Benjamin has to mend his broken family and rally everyone together in order for the zoo to pass inspection. Can they pull it off or will the zoo be shut down forever?
If you have any doubts in your mind, then We Bought a Zoo must be the first movie you've ever seen. Crowe sticks to a well-worn formula with characters drawn in broad strokes. Rosie is precociously precocious and Dylan is the typical angry and brooding adolescent. The supporting characters are similarly thin with Angus Macfadyen as the angry Scotsman, John Michael Higgins as an unctuous zoo inspector, and Almost Famous lead Patrick Fugit as the guy with a monkey. Seriously, that's his character, he has a monkey.
Music has always played an important role in Crowe's films. Aside from a serene score by Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi, Crowe's soundtrack selections are way too obvious, just as obvious as a subplot involving a tiger with failing kidneys that's meant to echo Benjamin's spousal loss. Tom Petty's "Don't Come Around Here No More" comes on when Dylan gets kicked out of school while a rain soaked montage is set to "I Think It's Going to Rain Today" by Randy Newman. "Don't Be Shy" by Cat Stevens becomes the theme for the awkward and budding romance between Dylan and Lily, which comes close to replicating the iconic love stories of the 80's that Crowe became famous for.
We Bought a Zoo has some strong points. Matt Damon is infinitely likeable in the lead role, Elle Fanning gives another solid performance, and Thomas Haden Church injects some much needed wit as Benjamin's brother. You'll definitely get a warm and fuzzy feeling thanks to cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (21 Grams, Brokeback Mountain), who gives the film a bright, sunny sheen. However, it doesn't feel like a Cameron Crowe movie. There are no "You had me at hello" or John Cusack holding up a boom box moments. In the end, We Bought a Zoo is an innocuous little picture that might have aired on the Disney Channel on a lazy weekend afternoon.
Rating: ** (*****)
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