Pumpkin - DVD Review

MOVIE
VIDEO
AUDIO
EXTRAS
OVERALL

One Disc
1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen/1.33:1 Pan & Scan
English Dolby Digital 5.1
English, Spanish and French Subtitles
Original Theatrical Trailer
Run Time: 117 Minutes
Keep Case

MOVIE
Rated R for language and suggested sex.

Christina Ricci is one of those rare attractions that we had as children. Remember how strangely alluring she looked in Addams Family Values? The scene where she and David Krumholz were talking through the fence. She looked cute, and she looked like one day she'd be hot. So maybe I'm one of the few that found her attractive in my youth, but then she grew up, and proved suddenly that not only is she beautiful but also quite a good actress to boot. Remember that summer she grew up? It happened so fast, somewhere between That Darn Cat and The Ice Storm she suddenly became an adult. And not only in appearance, but in her choice of roles as well. In The Ice Storm she played one of a pack of dysfunctional suburbanites in the seventies, struggling with her sexuality and her relationships with family and the young man who would be Frodo Elijah Wood. The lovely Christina followed this role with any number of unusual ones, strange, alluring, all roles with meat, roles with depth. She's done Sleepy Hollow, The Opposite of Sex, Pecker and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, choosing to avoid the pitfalls of growing up on film that Macauley Culkin couldn't when he maid mainstream film after mainstream film. She's gone a different path and has done wonderfully for herself.
So now, years later, she's established herself as an indie Goddess. The go-to girl that we haven't seen the likes of since Parker Posey. Which brings us to Pumpkin. This is one of those strange films, spoken about in film circles, usually in vague noncommittal phrases much like wine tasting. The film was precocious and unique with just a hint of whimsy, et al. But it was hard to find and hard to see theatrically. When good ole Netflix recommended it to me, then, I eagerly hit the RENT button. I knew vague ideas of the film, that it was about a sorority girl falling in love with a mentally challenged boy. And I remembered mixed reviews.
So yes, Pumpkin is the story of Carolyn McDuffy (Ricci), a perky sorority girl in the vein of Elle from Legally Blonde with a harder edge to her. She's a member of a prestigious (and, from the looks of it, quite well funded) sorority at Southern California State University that, to earn the title of Sorority of the Year, decides to mentor young men for the Special Olympics. But it's not because they care about them. At all. It's here that Carolyn meets Pumpkin Romanoff (Hank Harris), a young man in a wheelchair who is almost unable to move or talk. After an initial repulsion, Carolyn finds herself seeing the goodness in Pumpkin, the pure soul within him that she incessantly talks about. It's enough to keep her going to the charity, and enough to make her ditch her long time jock boyfriend Kent Woodlands (Sam Ball) and go after Pumpkin, her true love, against all obstacles and defying the odds.
Now, there's no doubt that I am an overtly cynical person, but that doesn't change the fact that unfortunately, I'm sure this doesn't happen often and I sincerely doubt that it could happen even enough to be called rarely. So, though, let's start with what this film does right. Christina Ricci, as I mentioned before, is an amazing talent. She's confident, she's intense and she's not afraid to be wacky or edgy. Her casting is perfect and you can truly believe that she really is having a change of heart no matter how much her brain is rebelling. The sorority house characters are basically the same stereotypes we've been seeing since way back in Animal House, and little has changed. They do make funny references to The Stepford Wives like nature of the girls and plenty of really fiery barbs go across the street to an opposing frat, but for a film trying desperately to be edgy, these little bits can't carry it that last hundred yards or so across the finish line. Which brings me to the bad. Something happens in this overly long film. The two get together and make their big stand against the huge oppressive system, often against society itself and then they have the dance and this is the point where in your standard She's All That type movie with Freddie Prinze Jr. ends. Pumpkin doesn't. It continues. For twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of such strange material that for the duration of this time both fiancée Willow Rosenberg and I were convinced that it must be a dream sequence. This strange reality based story thus far suddenly jumps into a world where cars explode in mid-air simply after going off a cliff, people who were formerly bigots, prejudiced against the handicapped find themselves in the same predicament and then COACH THE SPECIAL OLYMPICS TEAM! People who are truly right admit that they're wrong and they should've never challenged the system, a poetry teacher proclaims someone his best student and then collapses in the street after she announces that she's leaving the school. There's plenty more and there should be none. This film has a severe case of multiple personality disorder and it hasn't taken its medication and leaves us with the lingering after effects. I was horrified by these last twenty minutes. It's almost as though someone else came in, wrote and shot an ending to the story thinking it was a dramatic after school special and inserted his footage in place of the probably quite biting original ending. But that isn't what happened. This is the way the film was made, the way it was intended, however shocking and sad that might be.

VIDEO QUALITY
Since it's a terribly recent film, the transfer is good, though obviously not a tremendous amount of care has been given to it. The transfer also belies the film's low budget. That being said, however, it is presented in its original theatrical ratio of 1.85:1 and is being presented in Anamorphic widescreen. Occasional film blips and artifacts aside, the film looks good, but you're sure to never have THIS conversation: "Hey, Tecnodrome! You gotta come over and check out my DVD of Pumpkin, this is my new DVD image quality reference!" Not that you'd ever say anything like that, maybe.

AUDIO QUALITY
As with the video image, the Audio quality is good, and serves its purpose but offers little more than that. The music appears a bit over loud at times and some of the dialogue a bit muffled. The mix is very front heavy, with little to none making its way back into the rears of the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround mix. The audio feels more low budget than the video quality. Almost as though someone had no money and just added two channels on the back so they could say this is a 5.1 mix when it almost surely is not.

EXTRAS
Well, we get the loopy trailer. That's it. I'm always shocked when indie releases don't get any extras at all. These are the people who have something to say, just look at Darren Aranofsky for your paradigm of hope. (To which Darren says: "Yeah, look at me." These are also the people who WANT to talk about their film and will probably do so FOR FREE.

CLOSING THOUGHTS
So, is this one that you should see? I don' know. Depends on what you look for. If Christina Ricci in a bikini and grass skirt does it for you (did I actually say IF?) then by all means give it a rent, just keep an eye out for the true end of the film, the dance. It' got a high price tag, though, so definitely don't buy it unless you absolutely MUST have Pumpkin in your collection. And that's a BIG must.