In an age of Iron Man 2--ridiculous special effects meant to distract the viewer from the utter lack of character and story--Touching Home shines as real art. Movies have become too much about explosions, too little about the experience of living in this broken world among broken people. Touching Home speaks to these deeper issues, and does so unflinchingly, and at time, painfully
We see the self-destructive behavior without varnish. At the lowest point in the film, when Ed Harris' character robs from his own children to fuel a drunken gambling binge, we see what, for many families, is a total reversal of the nurturing role, a descent into familial parasitism. Cuttingly, we see the character of the grandmother watch Ed Harris as he steals from his son--she watches without comment, two generations of extreme dysfunction on pathetic display. And yet there is love, complicated love, the love of children sleeping indoor and pursuing their dreams while knowing their father sleeps under the redwoods in his truck.
Noah and Logan Miller are the stars of this film are utterly convincing and honest in their acting. One would never know that this was their acting debut (which probably says something about how claims of acting being a difficult profession are self-serving). Honest acting, acting without pretense, comes across plainly on the screen, just as false, ridiculous acting (Twilight, anyone?) is also easy to spot.
Touching Home was probably shot on a shoestring budget. But this, if anything, makes it the better film and multi-million dollar masturbatory festivals of explosions and cliches. Watch Iron Man 2 this weekend if you cannot manage an independent thought; watch Touching Home if you want to be moved. No one leaves this film with dry eyes.
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