![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Christmas Cottage
Nov. 9th, 2013 09:28 pmOkay, so I'm such a Sam girl that I just sat through The Christmas Cottage, in which Jared plays Thomas Kinkade, "painter of light."
Frankly, I've always kinda liked Kinkade's paintings, I like art, and I can dig a cheesy movie now and then, so I didn't mind the idea of watching it. I checked out some of the reviews on Netflix, which didn't seem to have an appreciation for what this kind of "authorized biography" movie by people who've made their name on a maudlin image are always like, which is to say, fake, cliched, and oversentimental.
That being a given, then, it was actually pretty good! The direction and the editing were where it seemed to come up short, because the script was not at all bad, and the acting talent was sufficient to have made a truly great film: Aaron Ashmore, Richard Burgi, Geoffrey Lewis, and the criminally underrated Chris Elliot all did GREAT work with what they had, giving depth to characters I felt like the producers of the film truly had a lot of feeling for. The reviews said the townspeople were portrayed as "idiots," and there was one attempted comedic scene that went on too long and barely elicited a chuckle, but I felt like I could see how these were attempts to (sweetly) depict real people Kinkade truly had love for, and I thought it was touching.
Another criticism I kept seeing in the reviews was that it couldn't decide on a tone, but SPN fans handle that pretty well, since SPN captures many tones in a single episode. This didn't do it nearly as gracefully as SPN, but I thought it touched on a lot of fairly real emotions over the course of it. I appreciated that it didn't pull punches when it came to sadness or loss or despair. Kinkade was a controversial figure because he presented himself as very Christian but some people felt he died (and maybe lived) in ways that weren't Christian at all, and to my surprise that was touched on in this movie, too--Kinkade's alcoholic father who abandoned them was made sympathetic but his skeezy inappropriateness was all right there.
There were TONS of parallels to Jared's character in SPN, and to SPN in general, which was interesting to contemplate in terms of the kinds of parts he may be attracted to. There was even the brother he was devoted to, being the college boy who "thought he was too good for" the people he used to know, an older father figure who (SPOILER ALERT, though trust me, you can see it coming from the first moments of the film) dies, etc.
As for Jared, he was EXCELLENT. He played it much like Sam, only smilier (nice to see him smiling!). There was a scene near the end when he had to WEEP, and deliver pretty cheesy lines, and he just went for it. He delivered such sincerity and warmth of feeling. It was adorable to get to watch him act with his "mother" and be a dutiful young son, and the interactions with his brother here were quite charming. I may be biased, but as far as I'm concerned, he made the movie by grounding it in that wonderful realness he manages to evince. I love SPN because the actors most of the time act like real people--especially Sam and Dean--which you just don't see all that much, and Jared brought that much-needed quality to this film. My friend and I expected to chortle our way through it, but most of the time we were quiet, getting into it. Don't expect an original story--actually, don't expect anything to surprise you--but for what it is, it was pretty good. And Jared is spectacularly beautiful in every scene, so there's that. ;-)
Frankly, I've always kinda liked Kinkade's paintings, I like art, and I can dig a cheesy movie now and then, so I didn't mind the idea of watching it. I checked out some of the reviews on Netflix, which didn't seem to have an appreciation for what this kind of "authorized biography" movie by people who've made their name on a maudlin image are always like, which is to say, fake, cliched, and oversentimental.
That being a given, then, it was actually pretty good! The direction and the editing were where it seemed to come up short, because the script was not at all bad, and the acting talent was sufficient to have made a truly great film: Aaron Ashmore, Richard Burgi, Geoffrey Lewis, and the criminally underrated Chris Elliot all did GREAT work with what they had, giving depth to characters I felt like the producers of the film truly had a lot of feeling for. The reviews said the townspeople were portrayed as "idiots," and there was one attempted comedic scene that went on too long and barely elicited a chuckle, but I felt like I could see how these were attempts to (sweetly) depict real people Kinkade truly had love for, and I thought it was touching.
Another criticism I kept seeing in the reviews was that it couldn't decide on a tone, but SPN fans handle that pretty well, since SPN captures many tones in a single episode. This didn't do it nearly as gracefully as SPN, but I thought it touched on a lot of fairly real emotions over the course of it. I appreciated that it didn't pull punches when it came to sadness or loss or despair. Kinkade was a controversial figure because he presented himself as very Christian but some people felt he died (and maybe lived) in ways that weren't Christian at all, and to my surprise that was touched on in this movie, too--Kinkade's alcoholic father who abandoned them was made sympathetic but his skeezy inappropriateness was all right there.
There were TONS of parallels to Jared's character in SPN, and to SPN in general, which was interesting to contemplate in terms of the kinds of parts he may be attracted to. There was even the brother he was devoted to, being the college boy who "thought he was too good for" the people he used to know, an older father figure who (SPOILER ALERT, though trust me, you can see it coming from the first moments of the film) dies, etc.
As for Jared, he was EXCELLENT. He played it much like Sam, only smilier (nice to see him smiling!). There was a scene near the end when he had to WEEP, and deliver pretty cheesy lines, and he just went for it. He delivered such sincerity and warmth of feeling. It was adorable to get to watch him act with his "mother" and be a dutiful young son, and the interactions with his brother here were quite charming. I may be biased, but as far as I'm concerned, he made the movie by grounding it in that wonderful realness he manages to evince. I love SPN because the actors most of the time act like real people--especially Sam and Dean--which you just don't see all that much, and Jared brought that much-needed quality to this film. My friend and I expected to chortle our way through it, but most of the time we were quiet, getting into it. Don't expect an original story--actually, don't expect anything to surprise you--but for what it is, it was pretty good. And Jared is spectacularly beautiful in every scene, so there's that. ;-)