FLIPPED Review


Sometimes a film will take you completely by surprise and so is the case with Rob Reiner's latest film 'Flipped'. It looked to be nothing more than a cutesy story of boy meets girl with a 50's backdrop. This assumption would be somewhat accurate, but it would not give near as much credit to this terrific little film as it deserves. Beginning from the moment they first meet at the age of five up through the eighth grade we get a look at love in an all to ignored stage in life. That awkward age of jr. high where we like to believe your first love will be our only and in every way, 'Flipped' makes us believe it were true. Reiner directs with a simple hand, within the story, its time sensitive set pieces and with his young actors. All of which shine through in their unique ways. To begin with the story, as I said earlier, this looked to be a typical girl meets boy story, but the formulaic story structure is switched up here with the story going back and forth from the two different points of view of our two leads. Juli, played by the wonderful Madeline Carroll and Bryce who is portrayed with just the right notes of smug and warmth by Callan McAuliffe. The story not only gives us the ins and outs of falling in and out of love and finally realizing how amazing that person is and how much you might have taken them for granted, but it inserts pieces of the two leads personal lives and how it affects what they think about their relationship, heck it even affects their developing relationship with one another seeing as they are neighbors. In the beginning of the film the relationship is more simple, as are the dilemmas in how to either avoid each other or get face time with one another, depending on who's head over heels for who at the moment. As the movie reached its second half though and begins to not only intertwine the two families, but the personal situations and the main relationship we realize how natural this development is fro a young man coming to the realization that what is actually true is what he's attempted to deny his entire life. It is a lightly touching film that is so adorable. The moment we hear Bryce's voice over say "My Juli" we melt and he has us in the palm of his hand. There is no doubt the back and forth gets a tad redundant after a certain point and some of the characters are little more than archetypes (especially the under developed plot line concerning Bryce's father) but all in all this is a magical little film that makes a great viewing experience for either family movie night or date night. You cannot go wrong, it will no doubt surprise you as it did me. I am so glad it did, it made me want to fall in love all over again.

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