Review: Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

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Review: The Black Balloon

The complicated nature of acceptance

By ALICIA POTTER | April 6, 2009

3.0 Stars

Trailer of The Black Balloon

Toni Collette as another unflappable mother? This time to a spoon-banging, shit-smearing autistic teen? The combination portends to be predictable, and at worst melodramatic — Little MissSunshine meets Rain Man. Yet under the sensitive direction of Australian Elissa Down, this deft coming-of-age drama succumbs to neither fate.

Collette and Luke Ford (as the seemingly impenetrable Charlie) impress, though the film gets its powerful point of view from Rhys Wakefield's portrayal of younger brother Thomas, the seething casualty of a household in permanent, sometimes violent chaos.

Wakefield anchors the well-paced quieter moments, in particular a rain-soaked interlude involving a swim-class mate (luminous newcomer Gemma Ward) and a truce delivered via sign language. Some twee touches (Dad is unusually close to his teddy bear) lighten the tone with mixed results, but they never sweeten Down's trenchant insights into the complicated nature of acceptance.

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ARTICLES BY ALICIA POTTER

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A baby with a brain tumor is no laughing matter.

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A baby, a high school, and esoteric pop culture references once again figure prominently — albeit less glibly — in director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody's first re-teaming since Juno.

REVIEW: A DOLPHIN TALE | September 20, 2011
Winter the dolphin gamely plays herself in this loose re-telling of her fight for survival after a crab trap mangles her tail.

REVIEW: AFRICAN CATS | April 25, 2011
To their credit, directors Alastair Fothergill and Keith Scholey don't cut away from a downed gazelle or a hippo mid evisceration.

REVIEW: LEAVING | January 11, 2011
Kristin Scott Thomas doffs her native language, a recent tendency toward shrewishness, and a couple of sundresses to play an elegant South-of-France housewife hot for an ex-con builder.