We Bought A Zoo

We Bought A Zoo was my favorite movie of the Holidays, and maybe year, I know I will get some raised eyebrows for that bold statement. Well besides the annual watching of the Home Alone's. But those don't really count. A heart warming tale of a widowed father trying his best to raise his kids. I have never been in that situation, in fact I don't have kids. But I felt like the movie did a good job of displaying some of the common struggles that single parents go through. I thought that the acting was really good. Matt Damon reminded me that he is one of my favorite actors, and rather versatile in his acting. The kids did an excellent job. And of course the lovely Scarlett Johansson was superb. The comic relief came from Thomas Haden Church, who I came to know from the hit 90's TV show Wings.

I sometimes hear people say that they don't like movies based on true stories. I am not sure what their argument is, I personally love them, and make the movie that much more real. Maybe people like to escape to a movie, and these true story movies just remind them that good things do happen in this world and they don't like that. I don't know, but the fact that this is based on a true story just adds to the craziness of the story.

One more side note, I find it ironic that this movie came out just after the news story that came out of Ohio. A man who had a zoo at his house let all the animals go and then shot himself. The animals were out running the streets, lions, cougars, monkeys, all the usual zoo animals were out on the run. Luckily this movie does not have that same ending.

The movie starts out by portraying the dynamics of a single parent home and the struggles that can be experienced. The son that is around 12 or 13 is rebelling at school, and causing problems, but the daughter is the optimist that is always looking for the good in everything. Maggie Jones plays this younger daughter, and there is no way that you can't say she is the cutest little girl. When the son gets expelled from school Matt Damon feels like it was the last straw and he needed to make some changes to move on from the lose of his wife.

He begins to look for houses and he comes across this run down zoo. Damon feels that this is what will help bring his family together. Knowing the risks, and having no knowledge or experience with animals he figures he can make it work.

Once the zoo is purchased we see the family learn about hat life style, and what comes with living on a zoo. They definitely have things fall into place to be able to keep the zoo, and there is a love story aspect with the son and a girl that helps at the zoo. That relationship is elementary, and funny to watch grow.

As you expected there is a love story between Damon and Johansson. Johansson is one of the zoo keepers, and is the one to really show the family the ropes. There are some ups and downs in the relationship, but once Damon showed that he was serious about this zoo and was going to fight for it she realized to be supportive and help him.

The movie shows Matt Damon develop a relationship with Spar, an old tiger that lives in the zoo and becomes sick. Luckily the tiger doesn't talk and teach live lessons to Damon, but the time spent with Spar, and taking of him taught Damon about perseverance and fighting for what it right. In these private moments of talking with this tiger he really discovers the purpose of buying this zoo.

There was also a Field of Dreams moment of "if you build it, they will come." For the zoo to survive it needed to be open, and it was not a done deal that people would come out since it had not been open for so long.

I thought it was a great movie about perseverance, and not giving up on what you believe will help your family. Sacrificing for your family, and thinking more of just yourself. It was just one of those happy uplifting movies, that is not over the top. The real zoo is in Great Britain.

This is definitely one of my longer reviews, but like I said it was one of my favorites from the year. One last point that I really liked, and this is the one that I relate to my life, or take as advice. Damon's character lost his wife, and he never really would talk about her. Once the zoo brings him out of the mourning, he explains to his son, who he has begun to develop a stronger bond with, that he only needs twenty seconds of extreme courage. He tells the story of how he met their mom, and how he only needed twenty seconds of courage to ask the mom out on a date. Twenty seconds, how true it is that we only need twenty seconds of insane courage, and then what ever happens happens, but you will never know if you don't use those twenty seconds courageously.