Over Christmas break last year I took the kids to see We Bought A Zoo. Loosly based on the true story, a book of the same name by Benjamine Mee and directed by Cameron Crowe this is a heartwarming story that is great for a family movie night. It is well-written with great acting, starring Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson.
A short synopsis of the movie: A recent widower with two children, Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) is looking for a new home and a fresh start. He finds the perfect house – that comes in a zoo and takes on the challenge of reviving the zoo and bringing it back to life. In the process his son is finding his talent (and a girl!) and dealing with being a young teen boy and his daughter is incredibly sweet and totally in love with living in a zoo. The family struggles, but in the end finds that they are still a family, even though their mom/wife is no longer with them.
This can be a sensitive plot line with the mom of the family having recently died. With two of my girls having lost a mom, I was acutely aware of this and a bit worried. However, we are very open in talking about our situation and plot lines such as this one can help bridge the conversation. We did not have any problems at all. I recommend if you have a similar issue that you think might want to watch the movie before your kids do to sure it is appropriate for your family.
The process of re-building a zoo and the ins and outs of animal care make the movie something different to watch and there is a young teen romance that is cute and not to much for the ages involved. I had a lot of fun with the girls watching this. While there was some name calling at the end, my girls are ages 7-12 and this PG movie was appropriate for our family.
A great quote from Benjamin Mee -
“You know, sometimes all you need is twenty seconds of insane courage. Just literally twenty seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”
Hits the stores April 3rd in DVD, Blu-ray and Digital Download!
(Disclosure: I received a copy of the above movie from Fox Home Entertainment for my honest opinion.)
