#23

So it's Sunday evening. Yesterday Germany defeated Liechtenstein 6:0 in very good and entertaining match. Lukas podolski seems to get his right form. Let's see if they can keep it up on Wednesday against Finland.
Ever since I was a child I was always very good at daydreaming. That's propably the reason why I like movies so much, because they give you the chance to dream and fantazise about a world you may never get into but want to get in really bad.
And tonight I watched a movie that might be described as a chick flick but I would describe this kind of movies as sentimental drama and I love these movies, because they always make you end up in a very emotional place and that's what I need from time to time.
So here we go:

Anywhere but here

Trailer




Director: Wayne Wang

Cast: Susan Sarandon ("Adele August"), Natalie Portman ("Ann August"), Shawn Hatosy ("Benny"), Corbin Allred ("Peter")

Review: It's not easy to be a teenager. Especially not when your Dad has left and your mother doesn't want to life in small-town Wisconsin.
That's Ann's life. Her mother, Adele, is a very ambitous woman who leaves her second husband, because she's bored in Bay City, Wisconsin. She decides to move to Los Angeles with her fifteen-year-old daughter Ann to have an easy and successful life. But Ann doesn't like the idea from the beginning. She likes Bay City, because her stepdad, her grandmother and her best friend Benny live there. So she's reluctant to go, but she has to. When they finally are in L.A. they rent a small apartment and try to live a normal life in California. Unfortunately it doesn't work out, because Adele's job as a teacher is in a rather bad neighbourhood and Ann misses her friends and family very much. But when her best friend Benny visits them she feels a lot better and even Adele is beginning to have some luck. She meets a young man who takes her out to dinner and spends the night with her. But then everything turns around. Adele's new love turns out to be an asshole who just wanted to sleep with her and then they a call. Ann's grandma had a stoke and Benny got killed in a car accident. And things get even worse. Back in Bay City for the funeral, Adele quarrels with her brother and Ann, who wanted to catch up with her father for so long, calls him and finds out that he doesn't want to have contact. So the two are devastated.
While Adele is still unemployed she sends Ann to an audition because she always wanted her daugther to be an actress. When she sneaks in at the audition she sees Ann playing her mother. This is the point when Adele realizes that Ann doesn't like her life.
A couple of days later Ann gets a phone call from one of the boys from her class. He has been trying to date Ann ever he has first seen her and tells her that he wants to kiss her.
So she invites him over and asks him to undress. When he is in his boxers he tells her again that he wants to kiss her and lets him. They kiss and hug each other and Ann cries, for this is the first time since Benny died that she is being comforted by anybody.
Two years later.
Adele is working at a nursing home. Ann works at a grocery store as a bagger after school and she has applied to Brown University behind her mothers back. When Adele finds a letter from Brown in her mail she opens it. Ann comes home and finds the opened envelope. Adele tells her that she should read because she will surely be happy, but Adele hasn't read the entire letter, because Brown only pays for half the tuition and the rest has to be paid by Ann and Adele.
Ann is devastated again, but the next day when she comes home Adele hass sold their Mercedes so that Ann can go to Brown.
"Anywhere but Here" is, in my eyes, one of the more underrated movies of the late 90's. It may be slow in plot development and the story in general might seem trivial, but it is not trivial in any way. The story is about the struggles of parents to let their children go when they grow up. It's about realizing that you don't own your child and about the difficulties you have when you're a child and can't make your own choices because your parents won't let you.
The strength of "Anywhere but Here" is definitely the cast. Susan Sarandon and Natalie Portman are both very strong and expressive women who make you feel what they want you to feel. Sarandon embodies the role of the overly possessive mother perfectly. Her presence is perceptible throughout the whole movie and her expression us very good.
Natalie Portman will always have a bonus with me. I just love her as an actress. She is blessed with so much talent and emotions and in addition to that she is one of the most beautiful and smartest young actress worldwide. When she feels pain in a movie, you feel pain as well. When she cries, you want to cry either. And when she smiles or even laughs, you never want to see another smile again. She has a magnetic aura and she always makes me feel warm and happy.
And all of this occurs in this movie. Therefore the movie is carried by both, Sarandon and Portman.
It made me feel like I was on an emotional trip and that's always a good thing.
Even though everything is perfect when it comes to the cast of "Anywhere but Here" there are some flaws:
1.The film only lives from the two female leads and this makes the other characters seem a little bit out of place.
2. There is no real explanation why Bay City is so boring. Adele justs leaves her home, because she wants to live in Beverly Hills. Why this is the case is never really explained.

Nevertheless is "Anywhere but Here" a nicely calm and yet still emotional film about mothers and daughters.

7,9 out of 10 lovely young actresses