Tiger Eyes (film)

Film poster.

Tiger Eyes is a film adaption of the Judy Blume novel of the same name. Like the book, it centers on Davey Wexler, a teen girl whose father was murdered and has to leave her home in New Jersey to live with her overbearing aunt and uncle in New Mexico.

Personal

I watched this movie on 2020-12-04 because I enjoyed the book, but the movie ended up being absolute garbage.

Cast

• Willa Holland as Davey Wexler
• Amy Jo Johnson as Gwen Wexler
• Tatanka Means as Wolf (Martin Otriz)
• Elise Eberle as Jane Albertson
• Cynthia Stevenson as Aunt Bitsy Kronick
• Forest Fyre as Walter Kronick
• Teo Olivares as Reuben
• Russell Means as Mr. Ortiz

Review

Good

• Nothing.

Bad

• In the book, Davey Wexler is 15-years-old, but Willa Holland was 21-years-old in the film. Even if the script were changed to make her a high school senior, which it didn't seem to be, she looks too old. Likewise, the actors who play her parents both look too young to be her parents.
• All the overt racism present in the book has been removed. The film didn't try to set the story in the 1980s like in the book, but it's not like racism has disappeared. This was a good teaching moment lost.

Ugly

• The writing is terrible. It's filled with generic trope-heavy dialogue. Even great actors wouldn't be able to make it sound good, but this film doesn't have any great actors; it barely even has competent actors. The family fight about Wolf two-thirds of the way through is especially awful. All of Blume's subtly at dealing with real teen issues has been ham-fisted. The credits list Judy Blume as the primary script writer, but I can only image that her dialogue was massively altered before filming.

Media

Covers

Does this look like the face of a teen girl whose is coping with the horrific murder of her father?

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  Film poster.

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  DVD cover.

Videos

Trailer.

Links