“We Bought a Zoo” is the second movie released in recent months that deals with a father of two children who is trying to start over after a tragedy. In the first, “The Descendants,” Matt King drags his two daughters around the Hawaiian Islands as he tries to find out with whom his wife was having an affair – all while she is in a coma on life support. The adventure connects him to his children, Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) and Scottie (Amara Miller.) The movie is funny, but it has some somber moments in it as the family deals with the pending death and loss of their heritage.
Cameron Crowe’s film, “We Bought a Zoo” is at times more light-hearted than “The Descendants,” and the Mee family isn’t quite as broken as the Kings. Crowe, who directed the film and worked on the screenplay with Aline Brosh McKenna, based the movie on a book by Benjamin Mee.
The real Mee family lives in England, but for dramatic purposes in the film, the family lives in Los Angeles. Benjamin (Matt Damon) is a widow whose wife died six months before. He is just trying to cobble his life with teenager Dylan (Colin Ford) and his young daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones) back together. But he still can’t bear to go to any of the places he used to go with his wife, Katherine (Stephanie Szostak.)
When Dylan gets expelled from school after three suspensions in one semester, Benjamin decides it is time for something drastic. He sets out to look for a new home for the family – somewhere that Dylan can go to school and where they won’t see constant reminders of Katherine.
While Benjamin and Rosie are out house hunting, they find a perfect place in an old, two-story building out in the country. The realtor (J.B. Smoove) discourages them from buying the house – and finally tells them that the property is actually a zoo. The state is selling the property on the condition that the person who purchases it will take care of the animals. The zoo has been closed for two years and contains lions, tigers, a bear, zebras and more. It seems like a crazy idea, until Benjamin watches Rosie smiling with the peacocks – the first time the little girl has been happy since her mother died.
With money from an inheritance and the sale of his house, Benjamin dives in to buy the zoo. His son Dylan is not happy about moving away from all his friends. Benjamin’s brother, too, has his concerns. Duncan (Thomas Haden Church) tells Benjamin not to blow his inheritance on a bad investment just to make a 7-year-old happy. Church has some of the funnier lines in the movie and says Rosie would probably be just as happy with a zoo screensaver as an actual zoo.
When Benjamin arrives he tells the zoo staff – who have been working for almost no pay for the last two years – his plan to renovate the zoo so it can open for the coming summer. He has four months to get the zoo up to code to pass inspection and he figures since most of the money is made in the summer, he can recoup his investment.
Kelly (Scarlett Johansson) is the lead zookeeper and she is leery of Benjamin at first because she doesn’t know him from the zoo community. She asks him why a person would buy a zoo – and his answer is why not? The two work together with a small staff to start planning the renovations and priorities for the zoo. One of the biggest things facing the zoo is that their 17-year-old tiger Spar is sick. Kelly mentions euthanasia, but Benjamin just wants to pay for a vet to treat the tiger to prolong his life.
While Benjamin is busy with the zoo repairs, Dylan becomes even more moody away from his friends and the place he thinks of as home. He spends his days with his headphones on, drawing dark pictures of the underworld. He hardly appreciates when Kelly’s 13-year-old niece, Lily (Elle Fanning), develops a crush on him. She brings him a sandwich every day when she gets off work.
Benjamin’s plan goes astray a few times as a pre-inspection leaves the group with more repairs and as funds run low for the projects. He is still dealing with his grief, and while things are good with Rosie, he and Dylan continue to clash. Crowe does a good job of balancing the grief-ridden moments with lots of humor. He also knows when to keep the dialogue to a minimum and allow the actors to show the emotion the characters need to display.
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