Word: krueger
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Writer-director Linda Krueger begins the film with Manny's voicing clunky, day-dreamy meditations: something about knowing someone in a dream before you meet them. The content isn't so important as the goal of drawing us into the kids' minds: wise before their years, and yet not really wise...
Then the movie hits what's probably its high point, with a fine poetic juxtaposition. One day Manny refuses to play turbulent airplane to Lo's stewardess (Lo stands and balances on her, fidgeting) because she secretly fears for Lo's increasingly visible pregnancy. So in one swoop, Krueger has portrayed well the jarring, forced switch from pretend to inevitable real life...
...first glance, all this blustering about contrasted with Manny's saintly endurance can't remain appealing. We are left to puzzle over whether Krueger has intentionally created two portraits of difficult development in childhood, at two stages, one on the cusp of adolescence, the other in the throes of it: then we find ourselves more interested in the motivations and reasons behind each character's current state, more so than her actions. Or are Johansson and Palladino just stuck in their respective modes, with Palladino especially mixing playacting with the over-acting of adolescent histrionics...
...film's detractors acquire extra ammunition when the movie, predictably enough, swoons under a case of happy-ending fever. Confirming that the story seems on the brink of really getting interesting, Krueger pulls us away to never-never land and doesn't deal with the intriguing predicament in which the three find themselves...
Separate from the story, Krueger's film technique movingly captures the tenuous string of moments that Manny and Lo enjoy on the run: hands under running water, ants scurrying like the two children...