Great Newcomers Warm Up Infinitely Polar Bear
Film: Infinitely Polar Bear (2015). Young Actresses: Imogene Wolodarsky and Ashley Aufderheide.
Some movies of a case of "don't trust the cover." I think it's safe to say that Infinitely Polar Bear is a case of "don't trust the trailer." Because when I first saw the trailer for this movie, it looked so bad, I thought I might throw up. From the trailer, it comes off very much as a "bumbling dad" movie. We've all seen these before, and likely, we've seen them way more than we'd like. Few things are more painful or less funny than watching a father/father-figure struggling at housework and childcare after mom goes back to work/school. Yet despite how completely tired and dated this cliche is, it keeps getting made into movies. John Travolta in Old Dogs, Jackie Chan in The Spy Next Door, or Zach Braff in Wish I Was Here are just a few recent examples.
The movie's cover, and Imogene and Ashley at its premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival
So, a disclaimer: Although this isn't a "bumbling dad" movie, it does stray a bit into that territory. The film opens as Cam (Mark Ruffalo, Begin Again) suffers a nervous breakdown and looses his job. He and his wife Maggie (Zoe Saldana) are forced to give up their bohemian lifestyle and move from the countryside to inner-city Boston with their two young daughters, Amelia (Imogene) and Faith (Ashley). Maggie is determined to send her girls to a challenging private school, so to increase her earning power, she gets a scholarship to Columbia University. She visits every weekend from New York while Cam tries to care for the girls in Boston. On his first night alone with them, he leaves them sleeping to go out to bar.
But don't worry, because for most of the film, Cam is more competent. Infinitely Polar Bear isn't another cliched take on a dad learning how to care for his kids, but more the story of a bipolar dad learning how to manage his condition in order to be a better father. In several good ways, this film reminds me of another family drama, In America (one of my very favorite child-actress movies). It isn't as good as that film was, but it does have a similar warm, tender mix of humor and drama. The girls and their parents all work together to remain a loving, functional family, even when life throws them into dysfunctional circumstances, and just as the family works together, so does the cast. This was the first dramatic role that I'd seen from Zoe Saldana, and she really does it well, even though she plays a rather unrealistically perfect, sacrificial martyr of a mother. The genuine family feeling that the four of them create is so strong and impressive, and touching without being maudlin. Credit for that also goes to writer/director Maya Forbes (Imogene's mother), who based the film on her own childhood.
Amelia and Faith during a ride through Boston with their dad
Imogene and Ashley are every bit on the same level as the adult actors in their roles as the very spirited daughters. For the most part, Amelia and Faith are the mature, protective big sister and innocent, adorable little sister roles that are fairly common in child-actress films. (See also When a Man Loves a Woman and In America, although in that case, the Bolger sisters did them so superbly that nobody cared that we'd seen them before. Like three of the four actresses in those films, Imogene and Ashley are making their movie debuts here.) But they aren't completely limited to those parts; in the girls' final scene and a few others, Amelia is the vulnerable one, and Faith comforts her. Also refreshing is that the family is interracial, and the film addresses this without ever being preachy or heavy-handed. Race is a part of the story, not the reason for the story, something that I feel is becoming all too rare with minorities in film.
Some movies of a case of "don't trust the cover." I think it's safe to say that Infinitely Polar Bear is a case of "don't trust the trailer." Because when I first saw the trailer for this movie, it looked so bad, I thought I might throw up. From the trailer, it comes off very much as a "bumbling dad" movie. We've all seen these before, and likely, we've seen them way more than we'd like. Few things are more painful or less funny than watching a father/father-figure struggling at housework and childcare after mom goes back to work/school. Yet despite how completely tired and dated this cliche is, it keeps getting made into movies. John Travolta in Old Dogs, Jackie Chan in The Spy Next Door, or Zach Braff in Wish I Was Here are just a few recent examples.
The movie's cover, and Imogene and Ashley at its premiere at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival
So, a disclaimer: Although this isn't a "bumbling dad" movie, it does stray a bit into that territory. The film opens as Cam (Mark Ruffalo, Begin Again) suffers a nervous breakdown and looses his job. He and his wife Maggie (Zoe Saldana) are forced to give up their bohemian lifestyle and move from the countryside to inner-city Boston with their two young daughters, Amelia (Imogene) and Faith (Ashley). Maggie is determined to send her girls to a challenging private school, so to increase her earning power, she gets a scholarship to Columbia University. She visits every weekend from New York while Cam tries to care for the girls in Boston. On his first night alone with them, he leaves them sleeping to go out to bar.
But don't worry, because for most of the film, Cam is more competent. Infinitely Polar Bear isn't another cliched take on a dad learning how to care for his kids, but more the story of a bipolar dad learning how to manage his condition in order to be a better father. In several good ways, this film reminds me of another family drama, In America (one of my very favorite child-actress movies). It isn't as good as that film was, but it does have a similar warm, tender mix of humor and drama. The girls and their parents all work together to remain a loving, functional family, even when life throws them into dysfunctional circumstances, and just as the family works together, so does the cast. This was the first dramatic role that I'd seen from Zoe Saldana, and she really does it well, even though she plays a rather unrealistically perfect, sacrificial martyr of a mother. The genuine family feeling that the four of them create is so strong and impressive, and touching without being maudlin. Credit for that also goes to writer/director Maya Forbes (Imogene's mother), who based the film on her own childhood.
Amelia and Faith during a ride through Boston with their dad
Imogene and Ashley are every bit on the same level as the adult actors in their roles as the very spirited daughters. For the most part, Amelia and Faith are the mature, protective big sister and innocent, adorable little sister roles that are fairly common in child-actress films. (See also When a Man Loves a Woman and In America, although in that case, the Bolger sisters did them so superbly that nobody cared that we'd seen them before. Like three of the four actresses in those films, Imogene and Ashley are making their movie debuts here.) But they aren't completely limited to those parts; in the girls' final scene and a few others, Amelia is the vulnerable one, and Faith comforts her. Also refreshing is that the family is interracial, and the film addresses this without ever being preachy or heavy-handed. Race is a part of the story, not the reason for the story, something that I feel is becoming all too rare with minorities in film.