Get Low

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You mean, Get Slow!

A common question one might ask one’s self when they die someday is, what will people say? Will it be all good things and no bad, or all bad things and no good, or a little of column A and a little of column B. Felix Bush (Robert Duvall) who also happens to be the crabby ol’ hermit of Caleb County, has also wondered this same question, only he refuses to wait until he dies to miss out on the juicy gossip. Felix decides to throw a party, a Funeral Party, where he can celebrate his own death along with the rest of the town. He has even decided to auction off his own 300-acre plot of land. Sounds like a good time, until that is, someone from Felix’s past shows up to reveal a secret that might not make the rest of the town very happy with ol’ Felix.

As much as I love a good story about guilt, cleansing of the soul, and love, Get Low was not it. It’s loosely based on actual events that occurred in the 1930’s about a man who self-imposes solitary confinement on himself for 40 years only to have his “secret” eat away at his very soul. So when I heard this, I was actually excited at how cool the plot is and it starred Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray, three award-winning actors! And though the three did deliver great performances, what ended up happening is that they dragged the story out for over 100 minutes with little to keep me interested. The film lacked orchestral overtures or music of any sort, which in a movie like this would have been perfect; what with the personal anguish that Felix feels. Also, the town had all of these made-up stories over his 40-year hiatus, but we didn’t get to hear hardly any of those. Then in the end, we did get to know his big secret, it was totally unsatisfying. I just think that the writers/directors could have done a lot more with it. Maybe we live in a society where slow movies without a lot of special effects are a bad thing? I hate to give this one a bad grade, but I found Get Low to be slow and well, kind of boring.

Motherly Advice: I had my filters set on low and I was spared just a couple “s” words and several religious expletives. Get Low has the usual suspects including, alcohol, smoking, and one brief fight scene. Several scenes to be aware of though include a house on fire with people inside screaming. You don’t see anything but it was creepy and quite disturbing. Besides that I’d say this movie is appropriate for ages 13 and up but the only people that won’t get bored are people who have already had their own funeral.

Trisha~ De-sensitized? Maybe. Short attention? Maybe. Or maybe it’s a little bit of column A and little bit of column B.



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