Whitney Brown is the kind of film that does not bring anything new to a genre already explored countless times in movies. Like many others, the film deals with the always magical interaction between humans and animals, especially horses. And this interaction invests again in question city versus countryside and all the changes caused by the drastic change that oblige someone to review many of its concepts, emphasizing what's really important in life.
Peter Skillman Odiorne - who had previously only worked as an executive producer for Under Still Waters (2008), as editor of the short film Patching Cabbage (2003), and as assistant editor on Farmer & Chase (1997) - directorial debut this dramatic comedy, and ends up showing his lack of experience to constantly break the rhythm of the film, hampered by an issue with many continuity errors, and a script that features parties without explanation, parallel stories without a proper purpose and having forgotten characters during plot. But the script by Gail Gilchriest disappoint especially when not knowing exploit the dramatic potential proposed. The same writer who had treated the interaction between animals and humans in My Dog Skip (2000), this time cannot excite and involve as before. The main asset of the plot is in its cast. Experienced names like Aidan Quinn ( Frankenstein (1994)) and Brooke Shields (TV series Hannah Montana (2007-2009)), increase the credibility of the plot.
The film introduces us to our protagonist and the life she had since birth. We see only the private school attended by the elite of Philadelphia. At school there are "social groups" characterized by "nerds" and the "popular". When her father loses his job, there is a definite shift in the world of a teenager when she needs to move to the countryside with his parents. From that moment, they all had to adapt to new life. While her father Henry tries to get a new job, the mother of Whitney, Joan (Brooke Shields) have to cook again, and the girl herself and learns things simple gestures, like milking a cow, learn to sew their own clothes and give more values friendship and family. True friendship she learns from the horse Bob, and it is through him that she just approaching his grandfather, who had no coexistence, and their parents.
But even with the good cast, let's start talking about the synopsis, which in itself is a cliché, in order to excite and to manipulate the audience. The problem is that it cannot. Important parts of the plot and that would yield the best moments of emotion, that would justify the presence of important names of the cast, there are hardly any. Much more could be extracted from Whitney relationship with their parents as well as the relationship of the girl with his newly discovered grandfather. But is the relationship between the father and grandfather of the girl, we expected to have important scenes from the beginning. All of the relationship between the two is poorly explored. We only know that the two have never been close, and that his grandfather moved away from the family for two years since his wife had died. The relationships between all of the family could have been much amplified, and not just focused on the relationship with the horse Bob Whitney.
We also have a relationship with your friends Whitney of Philadelphia which is a passage very quickly and there's no time to be involved with all to justify the actions of the last 20 minutes of plot. And what of the new friends at the camp? We have some scenes where Whitney prejudice suffered by the students of the place and could not make friends. When she decides to dress more appropriately to fit in, she gets an approximation, but after intentionally to imply that their new friends were taunting them Durate a party at the farm of one of them, they are simply forgotten script. It is one of the parallel stories without conclusion. At that same school in the field occurs something unexplained. Instead of students learning mathematics, chemistry and physics, they learn to take cow milk within the classroom and sew. All passages within the school, are all always sewing or doing tasks of rural life. And all this for later in the film, in a scene to show her their rich friends who did not mind not wearing a costume designer, but done by herself. And what about the farm where they moved? There, fish and carrots grow rapidly, and fresh blackberries Joan are also seen in abundance to create a sub-plot to the mother of Whitney. To make matters worse, in a deserted place and away from everything, dozens of trucks start lining up to buy these blackberries. To arrive at a distant site like that, the driver would have to travel for a few hours. And to buy blackberries? And not only that. And the horse was injured and suddenly gets up and starts running better than before to let her friend on the train heading to Philadelphia? What about a horse running through a city and comes coincidentally at the exact moment the ball to help their human friend? And the horse back to the field on the bench tiny car? Finally, we have the fact Whitney entering your school prom without any difficulty, and she was no longer a student at the school for months.
Anyway, the movie is not anything that we have not seen before, with a script without dramatic arches, without rhythm and unusual situations and many continuity errors and script. As movie is must in many ways, but as a message for the family, especially for children, is quite valid. A family comedy with a charismatic protagonist and conveys important messages of true friendships, resume, love and appreciation of feelings and what matters in life.
Peter Skillman Odiorne - who had previously only worked as an executive producer for Under Still Waters (2008), as editor of the short film Patching Cabbage (2003), and as assistant editor on Farmer & Chase (1997) - directorial debut this dramatic comedy, and ends up showing his lack of experience to constantly break the rhythm of the film, hampered by an issue with many continuity errors, and a script that features parties without explanation, parallel stories without a proper purpose and having forgotten characters during plot. But the script by Gail Gilchriest disappoint especially when not knowing exploit the dramatic potential proposed. The same writer who had treated the interaction between animals and humans in My Dog Skip (2000), this time cannot excite and involve as before. The main asset of the plot is in its cast. Experienced names like Aidan Quinn ( Frankenstein (1994)) and Brooke Shields (TV series Hannah Montana (2007-2009)), increase the credibility of the plot.
The film introduces us to our protagonist and the life she had since birth. We see only the private school attended by the elite of Philadelphia. At school there are "social groups" characterized by "nerds" and the "popular". When her father loses his job, there is a definite shift in the world of a teenager when she needs to move to the countryside with his parents. From that moment, they all had to adapt to new life. While her father Henry tries to get a new job, the mother of Whitney, Joan (Brooke Shields) have to cook again, and the girl herself and learns things simple gestures, like milking a cow, learn to sew their own clothes and give more values friendship and family. True friendship she learns from the horse Bob, and it is through him that she just approaching his grandfather, who had no coexistence, and their parents.
But even with the good cast, let's start talking about the synopsis, which in itself is a cliché, in order to excite and to manipulate the audience. The problem is that it cannot. Important parts of the plot and that would yield the best moments of emotion, that would justify the presence of important names of the cast, there are hardly any. Much more could be extracted from Whitney relationship with their parents as well as the relationship of the girl with his newly discovered grandfather. But is the relationship between the father and grandfather of the girl, we expected to have important scenes from the beginning. All of the relationship between the two is poorly explored. We only know that the two have never been close, and that his grandfather moved away from the family for two years since his wife had died. The relationships between all of the family could have been much amplified, and not just focused on the relationship with the horse Bob Whitney.
We also have a relationship with your friends Whitney of Philadelphia which is a passage very quickly and there's no time to be involved with all to justify the actions of the last 20 minutes of plot. And what of the new friends at the camp? We have some scenes where Whitney prejudice suffered by the students of the place and could not make friends. When she decides to dress more appropriately to fit in, she gets an approximation, but after intentionally to imply that their new friends were taunting them Durate a party at the farm of one of them, they are simply forgotten script. It is one of the parallel stories without conclusion. At that same school in the field occurs something unexplained. Instead of students learning mathematics, chemistry and physics, they learn to take cow milk within the classroom and sew. All passages within the school, are all always sewing or doing tasks of rural life. And all this for later in the film, in a scene to show her their rich friends who did not mind not wearing a costume designer, but done by herself. And what about the farm where they moved? There, fish and carrots grow rapidly, and fresh blackberries Joan are also seen in abundance to create a sub-plot to the mother of Whitney. To make matters worse, in a deserted place and away from everything, dozens of trucks start lining up to buy these blackberries. To arrive at a distant site like that, the driver would have to travel for a few hours. And to buy blackberries? And not only that. And the horse was injured and suddenly gets up and starts running better than before to let her friend on the train heading to Philadelphia? What about a horse running through a city and comes coincidentally at the exact moment the ball to help their human friend? And the horse back to the field on the bench tiny car? Finally, we have the fact Whitney entering your school prom without any difficulty, and she was no longer a student at the school for months.
Anyway, the movie is not anything that we have not seen before, with a script without dramatic arches, without rhythm and unusual situations and many continuity errors and script. As movie is must in many ways, but as a message for the family, especially for children, is quite valid. A family comedy with a charismatic protagonist and conveys important messages of true friendships, resume, love and appreciation of feelings and what matters in life.
