LEAVING NORMAL
A film review by Richard J. Rauser
Copyright 1992 by WNI and Richard J. Rauser
I'll be honest: a girl friend of mine dragged me to LEAVING NORMAL. I figured, what the heck, it's half-price Tuesday and there might even be an interesting scene or two. But overall, I expected the film to be a waste of my time.
I was pleasantly surprised.
LEAVING NORMAL is, to put it simply, a fantastic movie. The story concerns an abused, disillusioned housewife who runs away from her abusive husband and a streetwise cocktail waitress who inherits land up in Alaska. The two women cross paths and journey to Alaska together.
Doesn't sound like much? A non-violent THELMA AND LOUISE rip-off, you say? A sappy film? Wrong, wrong, wrong. The movie is brilliant. The acting is amazing, the story flows so smoothly you'll be literally carried along, and the characters are so likable you'll be feeling with them every step of the way.
I honestly cannot imagine anyone not liking LEAVING NORMAL. It is a movie that should be cliched but isn't. There is female bonding but it is believable and endearing. There is the abused-woman-at-every-turn theme but it works and isn't top-heavy with scores of evil male characters. There are good people and bad, likable and unlikable, just like real life. LEAVING NORMAL, with the exception of a few scenes that are intentionally overdone, is a slice of real life. And what you see is happy at times, sad at times, tragic at times, and inspiring at times. And when it's all said and done, you realize that this trip to Alaska and everything that happens along the way is really a metaphor for our daily struggle through this life ... and if there's one thing that the viewer of LEAVING NORMAL will come away with, it's that life is not only worth living, it is worth living with enormous dedication and strength.
LEAVING NORMAL is nearly perfect. It is sentimental in the right places, sad in the right places, funny in the right places, and inspiring throughout.
There is one scene in this movie I disliked, because I felt the character types that the film was attacking were treated unfairly ... but this is minor; I hardly noticed it. Overall LEAVING NORMAL deserves a 9-1/2 out of 10, which I happily give it.
I just wish the so-called "blockbusters" that have been disappointing me thus far were half as good as this movie.
See LEAVING NORMAL. See it! Nuff said.
-- Richard J. Rauser rauser@sfu.ca WNI
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews