We were not amused

Rating: 3/10 (27 October 2012)

This is a story, in 1965, about 2-teenagers (Sam and Suzy) who run away from their homes, and discover true friendship, love and some sex. The parents of Suzy (Kara Hayward) label her as "troubled.' The parents of Sam (Jared Gilman) say they cannot cope with him anymore and write him a note not to come back when he runs away. The whole island gears up to find the runaways.
The best thing about this movie is the music. Everything else is done in an extremely dead-pan way. You will, however, enjoy this movie if you are friends with Bruce Willis, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Harvey Keitel. They pull off the most dead-pan performances you will ever see, although you will see some animation with Keitel and Swinton. Maybe it was supposed to be that way, but hey, there is an audience out here and we were not amused. If the powers that be didn't want to involve the audience, they should have left it as a book, which was probably more exciting than this. Yes, some will say I didn't understand this at all. They could be right, but this was not entertaining and I was not amused. I kept checking the DVR to see how much was left.
Did we care about anything? Well we enjoyed the interplay between Sam and Suzy, but even that was held at a distance from the audience (that would be us) and from themselves too. Their dialogues were on the dead-pan order too and came across as "matter of fact." In other words no real emotion and not "dead-pan" funny. The sex was non-existent as it should have been considering the ages of the runaways. There was a copping a feel and attempts at French kissing at one point. Innocent enough and didn't last long. Again, did we care about anything? Yes, when would this be over.
There was supposed to be a very big storm to come in and wreck everything. Give me a break. A little rain, wind, and sounds of thunder do not a storm make. So the storm didn't work.
There is narration almost throughout, but it fell flat and why did they bother? That was an excellent chance to do inject some humor if humor wasn't going to show up in characters' dialogues. And, of course, it didn't. That is, unless you are friends with the stars mentioned above. I can hear them howling with laughter now.
What do I really think? This deserves a Do-Over with a better script to include humor. Dead-pan humor is good when it is funny. This was not. (3/10)
Violence: No. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Copping a feel: Yes, briefly. French kissing: Yes, briefly. Language: Some soft stuff only and not much of it.