Is anyone listening?

Rating: 8/10 (19 March 2006)

Perhaps I liked this film because of what it was not. Having heard that it was about racism, and had received some awards, I automatically expected the classic Hollywood treatment where the racists are easily identified by their southern accents, poor diction, use of politically incorrect terms, and obvious lack of education. This film took a broader view. Although many viewers seemed to think the film was dark and critical of humanity, I found it to be unrealistically optimistic because almost every character had some strong redeeming quality ... not true in "real life". If there was a general theme, it seemed to be that people don't really listen to each other ... because they don't need to ... by just looking at the person you know who and what they are ... and of course we know who and what we are ... so we already know everything. The tongue-in-cheek comedy sprinkled through the stories made it more digestible. I gave it an 8 out of 10.