Standing Up

Standing Up is a movie based on the book The Goats by Brock Cole.

Review

Good

• The film stays pretty true to the book's plot line. I was surprised that they kept some of the more eyebrow-raising moments, like when Grace shows off her panties and wrestles Howie in motel bed.
• The two main child actors are pretty good.
• I liked the idea of taking pictures through the whole ordeal and seeing them at the end.
• It was interesting how the scenes in the film didn't fit with the ones I had in my head, but I they became much more real from the film.
• I don't remember Howie being an orphan in the book, but it was a nice addition to the movie.

Bad

• They naturally had to leave out the more controversial bits like childhood nudity, but I wish they would have kept in the parts about menstruation so that little boys watching would know about what girls have to deal with.
• They changed Laura's name to Grace which didn't fit with the 1980's time line.
• While the camera was a good idea, a lot of the times Howie takes pictures are very inopportune.

Ugly

• The ending was lame. In the book, there is a very real chance that the two will disappear into the woods together, but they begrudgingly return on the condition that they never let go of each other. But in the movie, the last we see of Howie is him being abandoned as Grace runs to hug her mother. Everything else about him is from the voice-over of Grace.

Links

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_Up - Wikipedia.
• imdb.com/title/tt1905042 - Internet Movie Database.