Farmer of the Year
Oct. 25th, 2018 08:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI had strong reactions to most of the Heartland Film Festival movies. Either I loved them (Radium Girls, Prospect, Seeing is Believing: Women Direct, and Saints Rest) or I hated them (these movies shall remain nameless).
Farmer of the Year is the exception. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it. It’s just kind of meh.
The movie centers on Hap Anderson, an 83-year-old farmer in Iowa who has just sold his farm to his son and daughter-in-law. At loose ends after his retirement, he decides to go to the 65-reunion of his World War II battalion, which is going to take place on the other side of the country. His granddaughter Ashley - unable to find a job after college graduation and therefore also at loose ends - decides to go with him.
Doesn’t the movie sound delightful? Old people! Intergenerational bonding! ROAD TRIP!
The intergenerational bonding never really develops. They do get slightly closer as the movie goes on, purely because of forced proximity: Hap comforts Ashley when she cries about her lack of dating success, while Ashley helps Hap set up an online dating profile because he doesn’t want to go to the reunion solo. (I’m not sure why walking into the reunion with his pretty granddaughter isn’t good enough, but so it goes.)
But I never felt that Hap and Ashley really connected - that they discovered anything in common or formed any bond that would last past the end of this trip. And without that, the movie feels emotionally hollow.
Farmer of the Year is the exception. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it. It’s just kind of meh.
The movie centers on Hap Anderson, an 83-year-old farmer in Iowa who has just sold his farm to his son and daughter-in-law. At loose ends after his retirement, he decides to go to the 65-reunion of his World War II battalion, which is going to take place on the other side of the country. His granddaughter Ashley - unable to find a job after college graduation and therefore also at loose ends - decides to go with him.
Doesn’t the movie sound delightful? Old people! Intergenerational bonding! ROAD TRIP!
The intergenerational bonding never really develops. They do get slightly closer as the movie goes on, purely because of forced proximity: Hap comforts Ashley when she cries about her lack of dating success, while Ashley helps Hap set up an online dating profile because he doesn’t want to go to the reunion solo. (I’m not sure why walking into the reunion with his pretty granddaughter isn’t good enough, but so it goes.)
But I never felt that Hap and Ashley really connected - that they discovered anything in common or formed any bond that would last past the end of this trip. And without that, the movie feels emotionally hollow.
