Because of Winn Dixie: My other dog is named "Albertsons"!

Okay let me level with ya. I Netflixed this cheesy/heartwarming kids film for one reason: It features the great Dave Matthews, over who I have a "broner". Well wasn't I pleasantly surprised when the film itself was really good! Now, don't get me wrong, I wasn't trying to dislike the film... I was just expecting to...! Anything with an aw-doe-wabow dog running around an old country town, while an equally aw-doe-wabow little girl gets pulled along behind him (by his leash), and the two of them make great friends with a precious cast of older eccentrics (that everyone has long ago written off), makes me high-tail it for the nearest John Woo explosion-aganza. I mean, come on, I'm a dude (with a penchant for some alt-rock jamb band with complicated world beat rhythms and richly personal poetry). I tend to avoid this kind of film. But Hope Floats, this was not. Keeping in mind it's based on a childrens book (not like "Cat in the Hat", more like "To Kill a Mockingbird"), I was really impressed with some of the themes it tries to impart on the little girl, and so, vicariously, the little audience. This is certainly a childrens book for the more mature 4th graders of today. Never before have I seen alchoholism, crime, depression, and abandonment dealt with in a way that wouldn't just zip right past an 8 year old. But here Cicely Tyson was, getting across ideas that some 40 year olds haven't gotten their minds around. One lesson in particular, that really incorporates all the others I mentioned: people do bad things, but that doesn't make them bad people. Certainly, we've seen this espoused in various children's programming before, but here it comes across the spectrum of age, in a way that literally connects the young, the old, the ancient. Haven't we all met amazing people who deserve respect and love, even after their jail time, or their need for booze, or their own apparent belief that they must pull away from those that respect and love them in the first place.

And haven't we usually sighed, and feeling useless, justified pulling away, in repsonse? Perhaps what's so much fun about a happy-go-lucky kid's story is that little SohpiaAnna Robb isn't interested in, or perhaps capable of giving up. She and her annoying tick-farm keep pushing and exploring in just such a way that the nearly-departed come slowly back to us. Bless her heart, as the corny gets cornier, they even have a dinner party. You can't help but grin. Just like the dog. Did I mention the dog grins? Yeah, it's kinda weird.

It's possible you stopped being able to concentrate at the mention of Cicely Tyson. It's possible you're as huge a fan as I--completely, droolingly obsessed with she who was Binta. She who was Sipsey. Well, worry not, she is brilliant here. Real in her children's book charicature. As is the great Eva Marie Saint. As is Dave Matthews. This cast is eclectic to say the least, in that way kid's films can be. A cultural mashup that makes perfect sense if you're 10.

He really is brilliant in this. This understated mix of calm and creepy. You instantly know he hides some secret (that turns out to be darker than I predicted, actually), but you also get the sense he can be trusted. An outsider, looking in. I'm biased, of course, but Dave is a really good actor. Or maybe a selfless, comitted one. I don't know if we can pit the man againt F. Murray Abraham, but he's more interesting than most leading men today. He was even pretty good in Where the Red Fern Grows. Which. Was. Awful. Anyway, the song he sings here, in Dixie, is called "Butterfly", and it's beautiful.

Even the little girl, one newcomer AnnaSophia Robb, is pretty darn good. She has a naturalism that puts one at ease. When she could have been too cute to keep my lunch down, she just seemed like a kid. Rough and tumble, baseball tossing, cute little kid. I mean, she ain't know Dave Matthews (or F. Murray Abraham), but as child actors go, I could definitely stand to see her in more work.

So, I enjoyed it, once I had the proper "this will probably be annoying" filter on. I found myself reflecting on the children's book, as an author, or a publisher: kids change so quickly, that every year or two is a new chapter of life. I mean, to me, all kids are basically kids. If a school is on a field trip somewhere, all I can think of is Groundskeeper Willy shouting "Augh! Too many wee ones!". But When AnnaSophia (who I think is 10 in this), calls little 5 year old Elle Fanning a baby, I suddenly remembered how 4th graders seemed young, when I was in 6th grade, and back in 4th grade, oh the 2nd graders were infants! Zygotes! Keep 'em form barfin' on my Ghostbusters shoes, thank you! So a story like this has a tiny window of target audience. Must be difficult to hone in on one time in a person's life, and write to that. Or, conversely, it must be hard to take a piece of writing, and identify the proper age group who would get what the book/film is tyring to say, but not be bored by it. The original author did amazingly well. Even I found it interesting. But then again, I *still* have a pair of Ghostbusters shoes.