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Pumpkin ***
Pumpkin is a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, though it certainly pretends to.
Carolyn McDuffy (Christina Ricci) has a perfect life. She’s the favorite at her sorority, she has the most wanted man on campus as her boyfriend, she’s rich, and very popular. She also doesn’t have a clue about life. That is, until she meets Pumpkin Romanoff (Hank Harris). Her sorority decides that their charity of the season will be a Special Olympics knock-off where they will help the special athletes’ train. Pumpkin is a wheel chair bound young man, who is apparently retarded, though that is never clearly defined. When Carolyn first meets him on the field, she is obviously out of her element. She acts like she has just been paired with a very big and very creepy spider. At one point she begins to scream, because he keeps trying to communicate with her, and she has no idea what he’s really trying to do.
This is the point when the movie becomes absolutely painful to watch. This is not a politically correct movie in any sense of the word at all. Carolyn herself is completely self-absorbed and unfeeling about anything other than her own feelings. She is selfish, immature, and stupid, even though she scored 1400 on her SATs. Slowly Pumpkin starts to change her. She believes that he is the only person who understands her, and sees that she is actually a good and often misunderstood. Pumpkin is the only character in the movie that stays on track with who he is. The other members of the cast constantly change from villainous to compassionate, and I was never really sure how I felt about the characters. For example, Carolyn’s boyfriend Kent (Samuel Ball), starts out more sensitive than Carolyn does. When Carolyn wants to set Pumpkin up on a date, she decides on her other handicapped friend, who is actually over-weight and not really handicapped at all. When her friend begins to cry, Carolyn gets angry and Kent is there to sympathize with the friend and gets angry at Carolyn’s insensitivity. Later however, Kent is the one who is oblivious to other people’s sensitivities, and Carolyn is there to get angry about it.
Pumpkin makes fun of movies that go over the top with “special” people as characters, and it is often hard to define if it is humor or plain meanness behind the plot. I don’t want to give anything away about what happens to the characters, because that is really what is so good about this movie. It is so unconventional, that it is extremely hard to really know what is coming up next, and how the different characters are going to behave from one scene to the next. Sometimes they’re compassionate, sometimes they’re cruel, and almost always they’re fun to watch.
I personally love the twist ending, and would be greatly interested what others think about this movie. I really enjoyed it, painful or not.
Pumpkin is a movie that doesn’t take itself too seriously, though it certainly pretends to.
Carolyn McDuffy (Christina Ricci) has a perfect life. She’s the favorite at her sorority, she has the most wanted man on campus as her boyfriend, she’s rich, and very popular. She also doesn’t have a clue about life. That is, until she meets Pumpkin Romanoff (Hank Harris). Her sorority decides that their charity of the season will be a Special Olympics knock-off where they will help the special athletes’ train. Pumpkin is a wheel chair bound young man, who is apparently retarded, though that is never clearly defined. When Carolyn first meets him on the field, she is obviously out of her element. She acts like she has just been paired with a very big and very creepy spider. At one point she begins to scream, because he keeps trying to communicate with her, and she has no idea what he’s really trying to do.
This is the point when the movie becomes absolutely painful to watch. This is not a politically correct movie in any sense of the word at all. Carolyn herself is completely self-absorbed and unfeeling about anything other than her own feelings. She is selfish, immature, and stupid, even though she scored 1400 on her SATs. Slowly Pumpkin starts to change her. She believes that he is the only person who understands her, and sees that she is actually a good and often misunderstood. Pumpkin is the only character in the movie that stays on track with who he is. The other members of the cast constantly change from villainous to compassionate, and I was never really sure how I felt about the characters. For example, Carolyn’s boyfriend Kent (Samuel Ball), starts out more sensitive than Carolyn does. When Carolyn wants to set Pumpkin up on a date, she decides on her other handicapped friend, who is actually over-weight and not really handicapped at all. When her friend begins to cry, Carolyn gets angry and Kent is there to sympathize with the friend and gets angry at Carolyn’s insensitivity. Later however, Kent is the one who is oblivious to other people’s sensitivities, and Carolyn is there to get angry about it.
Pumpkin makes fun of movies that go over the top with “special” people as characters, and it is often hard to define if it is humor or plain meanness behind the plot. I don’t want to give anything away about what happens to the characters, because that is really what is so good about this movie. It is so unconventional, that it is extremely hard to really know what is coming up next, and how the different characters are going to behave from one scene to the next. Sometimes they’re compassionate, sometimes they’re cruel, and almost always they’re fun to watch.
I personally love the twist ending, and would be greatly interested what others think about this movie. I really enjoyed it, painful or not.
__________________
"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
"Today, war is too important to be left to politicians. They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought. I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids."
Last edited by LordSlaytan; 11-29-03 at 12:26 AM.
