Children on Their Birthdays (2002)

It is a performances centric movie

As Good As It Gets

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

If you love Capote, and if you love his whimsical, dark, comic short story "Children on Their Birthdays", DO NOT WATCH this unfaithful and insulting adaptation. The writers and producers have turned Mr. C's insightful piece on the role of the artist in society into melodramatic slop touching on a wishy-washy childhood crush and a stale, lukewarm statement on prejudice and race. Gone are the biting satire, insight, clever language, and punch-in-the-gut beginning and ending sentences of the original piece replaced by a made-for-TV generic script and story that bare little if any resemblance to the source material.Capote when he died asked to be cremated, half his ashes interned on the west coast and half on the east so that he could be throughout eternity be bi-coastal. Though he can't roll in his grave, his ashes are surely undulating in their urns in California and New York after this disgrace bearing the name of one his most wonderful and cherished short stories.

This was a movie the whole family can watch. It is refreshing to see a movie that was very entertaining without an "R" Rating. I think the movie was fun. It had romance, comedy, drama, sadness all done well. The relationship between the characters had great romantic chemistry without being sexual. There were many funny parts such as when the kids were driving the truck and caught up to the crooks. There was drama when the townspeople loaded into trucks to go on a hunting spree, but there were no shot fired and bloodshed. It was sad when everyone was waiting for the transportation to Hollywood and the Pastor came and gave her the book. The movie reminded me of a simpler time when the town mechanic is also the sheriff and you call the police for missing roses.

Lillie Jane Bobbit is one of the most beautiful young ladies I've ever seen. Its no wonder the boys went bonkers over her. Truman Capote proved his genius on the particular story. The rivalry between the two boys, who had been best friends was for lack of a better word vicious. Rosalba Cat who turned out to be Lillies best friend, played her part perfectly, I hope to see her in more movies. As the story goes, a shady character held a bogus talent contest,and the folks of the town of Medda Alabama were cheated out of a lot of money. Billy Bob, Lilly Jane,Preacher Star, and Rosalba, who were the kids involved took it on themselves to capture the criminal. Wheather they were successful or not will be up to your willingness to watch the movie. I can tell you that Billy Bob, and Preacher Star, did become best friends again.

I rented the DVD because I was simply in the mood to watch a movie, and I'd seen almost everything else new that hadn't already been rented out. So I gave "Children on Their Birthdays" a shot, not expecting too much.I was surprised to discover that I really enjoyed it. In fact, the day after I had watched it, I found myself thinking about the characters and smiling. So I bought the DVD and have watched it several times since then.I won't go into a detailed description, because that's already been done. But the characters are endearing. Despite a forced southern accent by Miss Lily Jane Bobbit, she is still the centerpiece of the movie. All the children performed wonderfully.The movie is a study in contrasts: Honesty vs. dishonesty, rural vs. urban, child vs. adult, etc. Overall, it's a movie deserving of a higher rating than it has received.I gave it an 8.