Wednesday, August 26, 2020

{Review} A KID LIKE JAKE

 


So, I do this thing where I don't like to watch or read anything while it's popular with the majority of society. I like to wait until the hype dies down before I take a look at it. I did it with Harry Potter, Sex and the City, and more.

A Kid Like Jake is listed as a 2018 American comedy-drama film. I agree with the drama portion of the description, but I didn't find a lot of comedy in the film. The film was written by Daniel Pearle based on his own 2013 play of the same name.

You can tell from the poster above that there are some pretty popular actors in this film: Claire Danes, Jim Parsons, Octavia Spencer, and a couple more. The basic premise of the movie is a set of parents who try to figure the best, positive, way to help their son come into his own being. He was born a boy but displays effeminate traits. He's turning five and is about to begin school so making sure he has a healthy sense of self is important.

Greg, the father, wants Jake to begin counseling to help him express his feelings and healthy ways of expressing his emerging emotions. Alex, the mom, is pretty blind to the fact that Jake's displaying gender non-conformity behaviors. She thinks her friends and husband are attacking her way of mothering when they're just trying to help her see what's so clearly in front of her. Really, Alex was a little much for me. She was taking the situation personally when she should've been focusing on Jake and trying to discuss with Greg what was best for Jake's well-being.

Overall, the movie wasn't horrible, but I wish it would've focused more on Jake and how he felt. The poor boy barely had any speaking parts. I understand that 4- and 5-year-olds probably aren't very articulate about how they're feeling. I just felt like the movie was more about Jake's parents than about Jake, which left me feeling kind of 'meh' about the whole thing.

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