Sad Movies: The Art of Racing in the Rain (2019) Best Emotional movies that will make you cry
Rating: PG. Running time: 109 MIN.
RATING: 4/5
(this rating is based on how much it made me cry and i am only a little bit ashamed)
- Production: A Fox 2000 Pictures presentation, in association with Starbucks Coffee Co., Original Film, Shifting Gears Prods. production.
- Producers: Neal H. Moritz, Patrick Dempsey, Tania Landau. Executive producers: Donald J. Lee, Jr., Joannie Burstein, James C. France.
- Crew: Director: Simon Curtis. Screenplay: Mark Bomback, based on the novel by Garth Stein. Camera (color): Ross Emery. Music: Dustin O’Halloran, Volker Bertelmann.
- With: Milo Ventimiglia, Amanda Seyfried, Kathy Baker, Martin Donovan, Gary Cole, Kevin Costner.
The Art of Racing in the Rain: Movie Review
Last night, I wanted to relax, feel my feelings, and watch the movie “The Art of Racing in the Rain.” It’s a dramatic and romantic but funny movie that actually tells the amazing story written by Garth Stein. And it was a great movie adaptation directed by Simon Curtis, featuring famous but also new actors, such as Milo Ventimiglia, Amanda Seyfried, and Kevin Costner, who gives voice to the cute golden retriever, Enzo.
This wonderful film is a love story quite like no other. This tells of the relationship between Denny, played by Ventimiglia, and Eve, played by Seyfried. It also tells about how any man is connected with his dog. The movie would undoubtedly attract viewers of any age group. The story is said to begin when Denny takes a hasty decision on purchasing a puppy one afternoon, at his choice, Enzo.
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Named after a Ferrari, this adventurous dog and busy racecar driver start his journey in the city of Seattle. Just as soon as the girl that Denny is interested in enters the story, things take a turn little by little. The public gets to see a family in life, including getting married, buying a house, and settling down. All of these experiences are seen through the point of view of Enzo, with some scenes kept private and secret, and he narrates the story himself.
One big part of this movie that struck my attention was the cinematography. It is amazing and depicted all angles and feelings necessary to narrate this touching story. Most shots are taken in a normal manner where cameras take shots of the family and the dog that lives with them. Some shots are from the perspective of the dog.
The audience got to see Enzo’s world through his own eyes with close-up shots on Denny, Eve, and their daughter, Zoë, every time they were eating dinner, playing in the yard, or having important conversations in the kitchen. Along with interesting shots taken from the angle, producers managed to incorporate a coloring scheme that informed the audience about the mood of a scene or represented the progression in emotion.
At some point, the shots are stitched together to depict the passage of time. As the montage continues, the shots are darker; cloudy skies or dimmed lights in the house indicate that something significant was to happen in the story.
Another thing I do applaud the screenwriters for is having tipped the scales on the right side of the original meaning behind such a story and arming themselves with enough tools to keep an audience usually uninterested in the movie and dramas unmoved. I mean, it is a movie characterized by a dog as the most important figure, and you go in not expecting to cry?
Well, it is not normal. “The Art of Racing in the Rain” found the perfect hairline divide to keep things exciting but not enough to drown an average movie-goer into tears. I think too much emotion would have diluted the entire message the movie tries to tell in the end. There were just enough moments of doubt and exactly the right combination of scenes to make me cry.
Now, I cry a lot during movies, but let me hold everyone’s virtual hands when I say this: I cried at least for half of it. It is one of those tales where the standard normative hits one ever so close to home and lands itself comfortably among my ‘Top Five Saddest Things Ever Watched.’
If you choose to catch this one, which you should, as it is a cinematic creation, take a beloved friend with you (a dog, preferably), and do not watch this movie by yourself like I did. That way, you will have a fluffy shoulder to cry on when things get too much and a companion to hug after it is all over. After all, cherish every moment, for those memories will never come again until you may find the rain washes them all away.
The Art of Letting Go / The Art of Racing in the Rain
The Art of Racing in the Rain a (sad movies): I’ve not yet read Stein’s novel, and am thus not in a position to say how the two compare, but one thing is for certain: this film needs to break free from the conventionality of every other cliché-some-sad-dog film-and that will take a little help from your side. You need to entertain the thought and belief that dogs live with an unbelievably sophisticated and morose inner monologue going on within them at all times; and should you be able to do that, the floodgates would open and your, by now charged ducts will certainly unleash the waterworks.
There is something more than another clichéd PG rated pet movie in “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” it is a story that reveals also what it means to face uncertainty around life’s unknowing moments like illness, or even death, and even rain. In this film, one will learn really how loyal dogs are and how much they really care for the human beings in their life. All it asks from you is to go to an AC running theater, maybe munch on popcorn, or sip on a Blue Raspberry Icee whilst allowing yourself to become vulnerable enough for a good hard cry.
Sure, it isn’t one of the most dramatic, romantic, action-loaded, or even racing-oriented out there. But if you let it-if you can look past the zebra hallucinations and the dog capable of explaining things using words like b-an astounding juxtaposition against the insistence that they somehow perceive love-its grasp is no less than a disaster waiting to happen.
