| PUMPKIN |
 2002
– USADirectors: Anthony Abrams, Adam Larson Broder - Reviewed by Eric
The thing is, she has this way of reciting her lines that's a little off—she doesn't convey a sense of spontaneity in her line delivery. That sounds bad, but it's usually it's perfect for the types of characters she plays. Sometimes it's confusing because you don't know if she's doing it on purpose. In any case, she has a singular screen presence and an exquisitely weird appearance that sets her apart from nearly every actress in her age group; There's the category of "actresses in their early 20s," and then there's Christina Ricci. In Pumpkin, she challenges herself by taking on the part that every actress in her early 20s has played into the ground: The blonde good girl. (Ricci is also sporting a new and improved figure, and even though I read in a magazine that it's because she had an eating disorder, she looks awesome.) Pumpkin is the most bizarre movie I've seen in a long time. Keep in mind I've seen a lot of weird stuff in the last few years, but I never thought I'd see a romance between a sorority girl and a retarded athlete. Ricci plays Carolyn, whose sorority decides to do charity work with challenged athletes to improve their image in order to win a contest of some sort. Carolyn and her roommate express strong objections to associating with "those people," but she gets assigned to a wheelchair-bound kid named Pumpkin anyway. After a while, Carolyn grows fond of Pumpkin, and Pumpkin grows even more fond of Carolyn—inspired, he begins to walk, makes progress with the discus, and paints pictures of her. Soon, to the horror of pretty much every other character in the movie, Carolyn and Pumpkin fall in love. They're met with various obstacles, such as Carolyn's sorority, family, and boyfriend. Also, Pumpkin's mom (played with a comes-and-goes American accent by Brenda Blethyn) isn't too pleased with the situation, either. Speaking of her, and Carolyn's boyfriend, I was impressed with the fact that even though their functions in the film are clear (jock boyfriend gets jealous and possessive, Pumpkin's mother underestimates him and disapproves), they remain more human than character-types. During the portions of the film that seem to be serious, Pumpkin avoids the stereotypes. Hank Harris makes a believable Pumpkin, though I don't mean that the way it sounds. Unlike most recent movies featuring retarded people, Harris doesn't play Pumpkin simply for laughs. Yes, he makes us laugh, but not by running into things or making glib references to Madonna like Giovanni Ribisi in The Other Sister. Pumpkin knows how highly unlikely it is that retarded people exist solely to entertain us with lines like the Olsen twins' from Full House. But a much more interesting casting choice was Ricci: Was it a mistake to cast her as Carolyn, when her very presence onscreen in the antithesis of the character she's supposed to be playing? During parts of the movie, I kept thinking that Kirsten Dunst would have been another feasible choice to play Carolyn. Like Ricci, Dunst resists being lumped into a category with other actresses her age (and has more consistently believable line delivery). Ultimately, however, I'm inclined to think Ricci was the right choice for this role, because it's easier for us to see her falling in love with an outcast than, say, Sarah Michelle Gellar. Because, even if you put her in blonde hair and nice dresses and tell us that she's just another sorority sister, Ricci still isn't quite like the other girls. Her beautifully strange looks alone set her apart, but the true difference is our deep intuition that on some level, she's an outcast in disguise—not because the character was written that way, but because of the quality she brings to it. Indeed, her scenes in Pumpkin ring truest when her character is outcast in some way or another, like those following her banishment from her sorority. Both in parts and as a whole, Pumpkin never seems to be clear on whether it wants to be funny or poignant, and while those qualities can coexist in a film, it's strange when you don't know which is supposed to be which at any given moment. But Pumpkin achieves such divine perfection both as a comedy and as a drama at different times. I guess the bottom line is that Pumpkin gets countless individual moments just right; the kinds that make you realize you're watching an exceptional film—though it's still bizarre how radically different each of those moments are. In the post-screening Q&A, the directors said that they wanted to meander through every different genre and style (including "after school special," which made me laugh—several scenes in this film are close relatives of Strangers With Candy). I've never seen anything like Pumpkin before, but knowing that helped me make sense of it, and thus appreciate it. |
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Most of us were introduced to Christina Ricci in The Addams Family, which is telling because it seems that she was never destined to go mainstream. Like Parker Posey and Tilda Swinton, Ricci has found her niche in independent films, and has worked on quite a few bizarre projects in the days since Wednesday Addams. Some have been good, some have been bad, but she's always been one of my favorite actresses, and I've always found her compelling to watch.
