The Astronaut Farmer

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I didn't have high hopes for this movie, not being a Billy Bob Thorton fan, but I did hope that the movie was going to be played seriously. Turned out that the moview was played quite seriously, maybe even a little too real. But it was a pretty good movie. There were lots of people that you could've hated, but really only one I found totally unlikeable. It was, really a family story, a family romance as well as a story about following one's dream. I would say it was a classic comedy, but no one these days remember that a comedy used to mean "from the lowest to the hightest." Probably the telling scene in the movie is when Farmer (BBT) s sitting ina school - hard to explain. He's been sent for a psychological evaluation - and the person to do it is the school nurse. Anyway - he's sitting on a bench with a boy about 10 - 12. He asks the kid what he wants to be when he grows up. The kid says he doesn't know. Farmer is surprised and asks if he's sure and the kid shrugs. Farmer tells him that he had better decide before "they" decide for him. It meant to me that from other things Farmer had said and what you learn about him, that he always wanted to be an astronaut and when life made him a rancher instead, he didn't abandon his dream, but that lots of kids these days don't even have dreams anymore. There's a whole lot of movie on either side of that scene, but that, to me, was the scene that told the "story" of the movie.