WE BOUGHT A ZOO

When  things get tough in life, many of us have a tendency to fall in upon ourselves. We hunker down, isolate, and just try to make it through. We strong-arm those who offer help, believing instead that the answer to everything is deep within us and that all it will take is time and willpower to dig it out. Sometimes though, this method is a terrible idea. When the clouds finally clear, we sometimes step outside to discover that we have pushed everyone else away. We realize that we’ve been neglectful. And sometimes we’ve gone and done something a little bit crazy…like buying a zoo.

Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) is a thrill-seeking journalist. He writes exposés on hurricanes and killer bees and seems to live not just for the story but for the thrill of experiencing the story. However, all of that is thrown into disarray when his wife dies of cancer. In trying to now be a good dad for his fourteen-year-old son Dylan (Colin Ford) and seven-year-old daughter Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), he struggles. He was never used to being the full-time parent, and certainly isn’t now that he has to balance the job with his own grief.

When Dylan gets expelled from high school due to acting up, Benjamin sees the opportunity as a chance for a new start. He believes it’s time to move to a new home, where every room and cupboard doesn’t remind him of his wife. When he believes he’s found the perfect home, it comes with a catch – it’s a zoo. The home comes bundled with a fully functioning wildlife park and about fifty different species of animals all needing a new owner to keep the place afloat.

Benjamin thinks it’s the answer. Rosie is tickled pink. Dylan hates the idea.

As the family continues to ignore the issue at hand, they all work with the eclectic zoo staff to try to get the park ready for a grand re-opening in five months. Headed by lead zookeeper Kelly (Scarlet Johansson), the staff are encouraged by Benjamin’s passion but wary of his inexperience. Whether it’s optimism or denial, Benjamin doesn’t want to admit he’s in over his head – but the staff can clearly see it. The question that lingers is whether buying a zoo is the answer to Benjamin’s problems, or whether it just another thrill-seeking distraction.

One thing I’m still trying to understand about the people I know, is the way that they all deal with stress so differently. My instinct is to distract myself – to go out, surround myself with people, watch a movie and try not to think about the problem at hand for a while. I can’t say why I do this; perhaps I think that given enough space and distraction, my issues will sort themselves out. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s the method I choose because at the very least I’m able to interact while I figure out the matter at hand. Granted, I’ve never bought a zoo.

However, much as I might believe that I’m putting on a brave face, the truth is that just like Benjamin Mee, I’m really only looking out for myself. The flaw in burying my troubles in coffee shops and movie theatres, is that just like buying a zoo, it’s only a distraction. The people I surround myself with might need me more than I need them, but when one goes seeking a distraction one doesn’t notice such things.

Knowing that, it’s important to understand that trying to distract ourselves from what’s bothering us isn’t a whole lot better. We not only avoid the issue, but we inadvertently what matters to those most important to us…and it’s those who are most important to us that will ultimately see us through. It’s not that we bought the zoo together, or that we rescued the animals together, or even that we shared a meal together that will help solve our individual troubles. It’s what we say to one another, and far more importantly that we listen to one another that will ultimately provide an answer.

My first instinct is to call WE BOUGHT A ZOO “messy” – but the truth is that “messy” isn’t entirely correct. the film knows what it wants to do, and has shaped actual events in a way that it can do what it wants to do. So no, considering its rough edges, it’s less-than-razor-sharpness, and it’s blurry brushstrokes, “messy” isn’t the word I’m looking for. No, the word I want is “rustic”. It’s imperfections give it charm, they add to the aesthetic, and they help evoke a wholesomeness that a sharper film would have cast aside.

That rustic charm is what comes with imperfect answers in the face of a problem – the result of a “why not?” mindset. The result might not be pretty, or easy, or fully finished, but it’s a step in the right direction. What we need to make things better seldom comes to us by way of windfall…it comes through baby steps and through seeing things in a new way. Telling the story of starting over with precision would seem insincere and ultimately unrealistic. The reality is that most often we grasp, stumble, and false-start our way through our problems.

These thoughts might all seem very personal, and have little to do with the movie at hand – but that’s the point. WE BOUGHT A ZOO is a personal story that will spark a personal reaction. Much like the way we all try to answer our own big questions in our own personal ways, we all react to personal films in our own personal ways. What will ultimately decide what a person takes from WE BOUGHT A ZOO isn’t what questions they bring into it, but what answers and experiences they take away from it.

Matineescore: ★ ★ 1/2 out of ★ ★ ★ ★

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