This weekend I watched the film Peanut Butter Falcon and wrote up a few reactions. If you want a brief respite from what we’re all facing, open your heart, and watch this incredible movie and unbelievable performance.
The plot is quite simple, a rambunctious, escapee Down’s Syndrome man played by Zack Gottsagen (interestingly named Zak) busts out of the facility he’s in and meets a ramblin’, directionless, deeply hurt man played by Shia LaBeouf.
They take a journey to seek out a wrestler’s school that the Zak has seen on TV for years. Along the way, the woman who is responsible for Zak find them and ends up joining them, played by Dakota Johnson.
The movie is a little bit Rain Man, Stand by Me, Huck Finn, Awakenings and a few others. As I watched the movie it’s like I felt the humidity that made the plot line move wonderfully slow.
While the story is different it reminded me of Cookie’s Fortune from way back when. I love the honey dripping accents and the honest and direct way the characters spoke to each other.
There was something so magnificent about the movie slowly letting plotlines and relationships build. And it didn’t feel packed or loaded with action or 20-30 minutes too long as most movies feel.
Shia LaBeouf is absolutely transcendent. I LOVED him in Transformers and honestly hadn’t seen him in much since.
The way he plays this character by relentlessly focusing on what Zak CAN do and looking beyond what so many people think he SHOULDN’T or CAN’T do. In the movie, it shows how he lost his brother who appears to be an All American guy (ala Ordinary People).
I can almost always deeply connect to a character that is astray in the ocean of loss in the context of someone else’s existence. It’s so fascinating how he both is deeply meandering and yet crystal clear about what to bring out of Zak. Maybe in some way the writer was connecting to what he wanted out of his lost brother.
There were plenty of tears for me throughout as you can imagine.
The ending is a bit sappy and/or unlikely, it just didn’t matter.
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