Secondhand Lions Review
by Laura Clifford (laura AT reelingreviews DOT com)September 13th, 2003
SECONDHAND LIONS
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Walter (Haley Joel Osment, "A.I.") is upset when his flighty single mother Mae (Kyra Sedgwick, "Personal Velocity") tells him she's leaving him with two elderly eccentric uncles he doesn't know so she can learn court reporting in Memphis. Mae says they're rumored to have millions and that Walter should try to ingratiate himself. Uncle Hub (Robert Duvall) is gruff but has a mysterious secret which kindlier Uncle Garth (Michael Caine) begins to tell the boy about and so Walter learns that they belong to a clan of "Secondhand Lions."
Writer/Director Tim McCanlies (Director, "Dancer, Texas Pop. 81," Writer, "The Iron Giant") tips us off about how his story will unfold with a brief prologue showing two old geezers buzzing under a highway overpass in a biplane followed by a young man receiving a bad news phone call. While this unabashedly sweet and sentimental tale is everything I was afraid it would be, I could not help but be affected by it, largely due to Duvall's perfectly pitched performance and McCanlies' sure handed creation of a child's unique world.
Walter is introduced to his uncles by a barrage of unwelcoming signs on the dusty dirt road that leads to their old Gothic Texan farmhouse. The men clearly want nothing to do with visitors of any sort, but don't put up a fuss having Walter deposited on their doorstep because he seems quiet, although Hub immediately informs the boy that he'll be fending for himself. Ensconced in a third floor turret room, Walter finds a stack of old trunks covered in far-flung travel stickers. Beneath a layer of sand at the bottom of one is an old photograph of an exotically beautiful woman.
The uncles spend their days sitting on the porch with their rifles to shoot in the air when the procession of traveling salesmen, attracted by their rumored wealth, attempt to call. Garth and Hub are pleased to see that Walter's presence has upset the obnoxious relatives who visit weekly in hopes of inheritance and even more pleased when Walter suggests they give a salesman a chance and he pitches a clay pigeon launcher. Newly inspired to actually spend their money, Garth begins gardening, Hub buys a plane kit and the two take delivery of a zoo lion to stage a home grown safari. Walter saves the old lioness by admonishing his uncles for not giving it a sporting chance and she becomes his pet, named Jasmine after the Arabian princess who Garth has told him was once Hub's wife.
McCanlies uses his lion as a metaphor for the uncles by presenting it as something old and presumably useless, which nonetheless nurtures the life of a young boy. It is also a symbol of the exotic locales and tales that Garth spins for Walter via flashbacks of wild adventures with the French Foreign Legion. Clearly we are seeing Garth's stories through Walter's experience, as old cheesy movie serials full of leering villains, beautiful maidens and dashing heroes (Young Hub is played by Christian Kane ("Just Married") while the less daring but more duplicitous young Garth is portrayed by Kevin Haberer). When Walter doubts certain elements of Garth's tales, Garth replies that sometimes it is better to believe in something whether or not it is actually true, a sentiment that supports the film's final act when Mae returns with new boyfriend Stan (Nicky Katt, "Insomnia"), a private investigator who claims Hub and Garth are bank robbers. An epilogue, which returns to the film's prologue, settles the matter and while McCanlies could be accused of going over the top, the surprise he springs is genuine and capped with an amusing visual joke.
Duvall is terrific as the gruff old man who is yanked back from yearning for death. Slowly he responds to the interest shown in him and delights in the toys and gadgets that make life interesting again. His new fight is exemplified in a scene where he takes on a gang of young toughs with unusual results. Caine acts almost as narrator, a gentler man than his brother who quietly looks over him while spinning tales of his former glory. As he acts with Osment, one can't but help be reminded of the older actor's kind words to the younger thespian upon winning the Best Supporting Actor Oscar the year they were both nominated. Osment gives an unflashy performance yet is able to pull the heartstrings in his emotional showdown with Hub.
The actors help one look askance at McCanlies's tendencies to get cute, such as always lining up the brothers' five dogs with their heads all cocked in the same direction. McCanlies's, production designer David J. Bomba ("A Civil Action") and art direction John R. Jensen ("Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood") take the one rural Texan location and create both a forgotten old broken down home and a nostalgic wonderland divided into cornfield, shooting field, fishing pond, barn, porch and house. A scene in a town barbecue shack oddly lacks a proprietor, or any kind of help for that matter, though.
This film is a reminder of Diane Keaton's largely forgotten, but more emotionally true "Unstrung Heroes," another tale of a young boy left with two eccentric uncles. "Secondhand Lions" isn't big on subtlety, but it is well crafted.
C+
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