The primary take-away message of this movie is that kids between the ages of 12 and 16 are terrible people. Horrible excuses for human beings. Unethical jerks. Soulless, spineless, filthy monsters. Etc.
I am sure most readers have their own list of adjectives to add to these few choice phrases. In fact, I am willing to bet that anyone who went to a public middle school in the United States already knows full well the horrors of pubescent and adolescent folly, specifically relating to hubris, hygiene, and home life, which Diary of a Wimpy Kid highlights.
Yet though the appeal of the movie stems from the universal cringe-fest induced by the possibility of reliving one’s terribly awkward pubescent days, Wimpy Kid is nevertheless curiously devoid of any characters that the audience is invited to connect with. It was more the situations that struck a nerve, not the individual kids themselves. Which is not to say that the actors delivered a poor performance—far from it. I think the young actors in Wimpy Kid did a terrific and impressive job in their somewhat hyperbolized roles.
It was just that at the end of the day I couldn’t really sympathize with any of them, but rather was simply left with the uncomfortable feeling that I’d just been a reluctant witness to the humiliating and extremely debasing spectacle that is “coming of age”.
Of course I laughed quite a bit—some of the situations are very funny. But overall, it felt like a downer. But maybe that was the whole point?
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I felt that this was one of those movies where you want just punch the hell out of the characters because of their inept ability to do things right. Then you remember, "crap.... these are 6th grade kids". However, it did give a nice feeling of nostalgia
ReplyDeleteI did, however,enjoy the movie and also thought the acting was superb. The characters really made you think that they are like that in real life i.e. the Angelika-esque Patty(Rugrats reference) (hahaha her name is Patty) that is always throwing a tantrum and beating kids up to the wimpy Indian kid.
Overall, I enjoyed this film and hope they make more. (Are there more books in this series??)