John John in the Sky

Contrary to previous comments on this little jewel of an independent film, this film is worth your time. I venture to say most people who are of the nature to only rent hit movies will not get this film. These are the same people who don't seem to read either.

This jewel unfolds the fabric of many lives. A frustrated father who because of a knee injury never fulfilled his dreams and yet still desires to do what is right. A wife who at first look is the object of her husbands misplaced anger and a son who lives in fear and at the same time dreams. A seemingly simple minded neighbor woman who befriends the little boy as his only playmate. The director and writers of this film lead the viewer down a road of stereotypes. We hate the father, sympathize with the mother and son. We write off the neighbor woman as a simple minded. But as the story unravels we learn that all is not as it appears to be. We learn there are two sides to every story and like the characters not everything is just black and white. Villains become heroes and victims become cowards and the simple minded become sages.

Take the time to unravel the layers of this story and you will find the jewel inside.

After reading the summary on the package, I thought this movie would be good. I was wrong--I didn't like it at all. The story didn't match the description, characters were weakly portrayed, the dialogue didn't add much information, and the ending was incomplete and left me wondering what the purpose of the story was, exactly? I felt no bonds between most of the characters (where bonds were supposed to exist) and emotions were for the most part rather blah. I didn't laugh once during the entire movie nor did I feel any sadness or empathy for anyone--except maybe the father, who supposedly (according to the summary) was the bad guy.

I saw this in the video store and was intrigued by what the story was supposed to be. Rented it and watched it last night. It was surprisingly good, somewhat similar to, if you will, "This Boy's Life" with Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio. If you pay attention, you'll see that there are quite a few things going on in this movie. The character's interactions all seem very true-to-life. This is a story which involves you and makes you think about how things were in the setting and times of this story, and about how people relate to each other, their relatives, and their friends. You can't help but empathize with the effervescence and optimism of youth, and you also get to see the pitfalls when the hopes and dreams of youth are not realized. Fortunately, you also get to see that the events that take place in life don't necessarily have to be linear, and there can be many twists and turns in the road. Very much worthwhile to watch. It's classified as a "family" movie, but it's probably not for the very young children (less than 12). This isn't Oscar stuff, but I still give it 3 out of 4 for the fact that it involves you and the story content.