Hal: Well, let's say that since you were little, you always dreamed of getting a lion. And you wait, and you
wait, and you wait, and you wait but the lion doesn't come. And along comes a giraffe. You can be alone,
or you can be with the giraffe.
Oliver: I'd wait for the lion.
Hal: That's why I worry about you.
This film has the very essence of what I look for in a good film; it's magical and it's about love... the love between a parent and child, the love between a man and a woman, the love between a man and a life partner, the love between a man and a dog and the love a man has for himself. It really is a little slice of heaven. We meet Oliver (a cheeky Ewan McGregor who has just lost his father, Hal, to cancer. Lucky for us, we catch glimpses of their lives leading up to this time. Lucky for us we are engaged by Christopher Plummer as he finds himself widowed five years earlier and deciding it is okay to come out of the closet as a gay man and a man with a new lease on life. This performance is stellar. Oliver reflects on his parent's marriage and his upbringing as he meets and falls in love with a lovely french actress played by Melanie Laurent. Relationships are hard!!! It's amazing anyone has them at all. Of course, one of my favorite parts is the relationship Oliver creates with his father's dog, who does understand 160 words of English. The subtitles are very clever. Goran Visnjic is a surprising little gem as Hal's younger lover. It is a movie of hope within realistic perimeters. It is a story of love, struggle and redemption. It is a story you must see.
