I know that I am supposed to feel very touched by a movie about a kid coming to terms with the loss of his father. I know that I am supposed to feel very sympathetic and open minded for the main character, who has Aspergers Syndrome.
I saw a lot of very positive reviews for this movie. They praised how emotional the movie was, and how good the acting was, and how it shows people overcoming death and moving on.
I thought the acting was bad, I have seen better on ABC family TV Shows! I'm serious. I don't know why so many people said the acting was good. What?!
As for the main character, the little boy, I am empathetic, and open minded usually, but I had trouble feeling that way towards him. I just couldn't stand him. He was annoying, bizarre, strange, and very smart, but super dumb. He was also very rude and obnoxious. He was in almost every scene. He was the MAIN, MAIN character, and I just couldn't take it. He drove me up the wall.
The kid didn't strike me as having a syndrome, or a "problem." He just was really, really, weird to me. He seemed like a normal kid that decided to be weird, rather than someone that had a real issue. In a number of reviews, people said "I have a kid with aspergers," and his acting really accurately portrayed the syndrome. If you say so.
I couldn't wrap my mind around the plot. It was just too stupid to make me even care about what was happening. I was super bored, and felt no sense of expectation or curiosity as to what would happen. It was so implausible and ridiculous. How could a boy of that age think that there was a sixth borough of New York City? How could he think that by visiting everyone in New York with the last name Black, he would find out what the key in his father's closet opened? Rhetorical questions. What was really dumb and unrealistic is that he did find a person, with the last name Black, which solved the mystery as to what the key was for. In real life, good luck with that. Someone writes the word black on a tiny envelope with a key in it. You visit hundreds of people named Black. Bingo. Make me vomit!
Then, in the end, to paraphrase he said, "My father is never coming back, and I have to move on, and be okay with it. My father would be proud of me moving on." Huh?! Never coming back? Don't believe in Heaven? No wonder it's a year after the kid's father died, and he is still having a breakdown.
It's just so odd that a mom would let her young boy, what he looked ten, but could have been older, go around everywhere by himself. In the end of the movie, it shows that she visited all the Blacks, before her son did, to check them out to see if they were okay. Really!! No one has that kind of time. She works full time. Just ehh. Come on now. Not even trying to make a reasonable plot anymore? Why didn't she offer to go with her son as an escort, instead of visiting all the Blacks in advance of her son?
This movie seemed to try to control your thoughts and feelings, and manipulate you rather than let things just happen organically. I felt like a dumb ass puppet. I just found the whole thing boring and annoying. Oddly, I have found that boring and annoying often go together, like peanut butter and jelly.
