This film tells a nice little story. This is the story of a teenage boy who is surrounded by dysfunction, but he's smart, insightful and pretty much knows better than everyone around him. I liked the concept and the story. David Duchovny and Vera Farmiga did a great job playing these wacky people - a grubby man who has a real affinity for goats and wants to be known by a seriously Hispanic name even though he is clearly not Hispanic and the rich spiritually-compromised mother who is completely selfish and self-dosed with whatever respectively . And the young man did a nice job being a center - the stabilizing force. The whole cast was pretty good and the acting well-done. The script was interesting and kept it moving at a good pace. Overall, it was an enjoyable movie.
Plot summary
Having a self-absorbed New Age mother and an estranged father has meant 15-year-old Ellis Whitman has grown up relying on an unconventional guardian: a goat-trekking, marijuana-growing sage called 'Goat Man'. When Ellis decides to leave the alternative ways of his desert homestead for a stuffy East Coast prep school, major changes are in store.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
December 31, 2020 at 06:21 AM
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The Goat Whisperer and The Smart Kid
Made me feel sorry
Even though this flick had a definite effect upon me I'm only giving seven stars because I felt the story was presented too episodic and choppy.
There's Graham's relationship with his mother, then his relationship with goat man, then his relationship with his Gates dorm roommate, then his relationship with his absent father, then his relationship with the girl that walks across the Gates campus. None of these seem to come together to mold out the story. Each person is compartmentalized into his life.
But maybe that was the directors intention as the overwhelming message in this movie is 'we might lives among others but ultimately we are alone in this world'.
This is Not a comedy! It might be lite drama but there is very little funny to be found.
GOOO-at Boy!
How does one review such a clichéd, though somewhat enjoyable indie film as Goats?
While it wasn't the worst (absolutely labeled as an independent film and certainly not a mainstream) film, it was so by the numbers for this kind of film, it wasn't the standout I thought it would be. And that said, still, it has enough to carry me through to the ending.
Poor Arizona. That's where I currently reside. We cannot get a break. This movie begins and centers around Arizona, specifically somewhere near Tucson, two hours south of me. It has a boy, well, young man, Ellis, who takes care of his hippie mother and is best buds with bud-producing Goat Man – not his real name, but since he's always around the animals he hates, it's been granted to him.
Ellis needs to go to prep school – the same one his divorced father went to. And that's far away. Will his Stuck-in-the-60s mother (the always lovely, but never gets the full recognition as she should: Vera Farmiga) survive without her son? Will he get into trouble in school? Will his father reunite with him and if so, will it better him?
The movie does play out in the A-B-C's of Independent Film, but again, there's enough interesting dialogue and characters to move the goats from one side of the script to the next. So, I mildly recommend it with the reservation that I challenge film students to expand on the clichéd tactics of hundreds of movies before them.