Like Dandelion Dust (2009)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

A relatively low budget but extremely good drama. This could have turned into a standard melodrama but is elevated far beyond this by an intelligent and believable script. The real stars though are the actors who are all terrific. Barry Pepper has always been a favourite of mine and he excels himself in this role but there are no weak links in this film. A special mention must go to the actor playing the little boy, Maxwell Perry Cotton who is utterly convincing as the frightened and confused little boy. It was one of the best performances from a young actor I have ever seen. The film does flag a little towards the end but finishes on an emotional high. I rarely watch films twice in a short period of time but I did with this one and enjoyed it just as much second time round. Recommended.

I never heard of this film until it came to my attention on Netflix and I watched it. It was an amazingly well balanced film, similar to some stories that were in the news a few years back, where an adopted child is sought by his biological parents years after an adoption was assumed permanent, due to the father not having given legal consent. Reading the credits, I learned it was based on a novel by Karen Kingsbury, and after reading the other reviews here, learned it was released by a Christian company, which I was totally unaware of while watching the film. I am an agnostic, and lean toward atheism, but have loved some Christian films, like Treasures of the Snow, Fireproof, and To Save A Life. And while this barely touched on Faith, (Thankfully in my non-religious opinion), those who decried the changes from the book, (which I haven't read, nor probably never will), struck me as not liking the film for the very reasons that made it so good. That is, not portraying the parties in obvious colors, not making the biological parents totally unfit, at least at first, after Pepper's release from prison, and not portraying the adoptive parents as beyond fault, which raised this above the typical lifetime movie, in my opinion. In fact, when Barry Pepper reverts to some of his abusive behaviors late in the film, I was a little disappointed, because I didn't want the film to take the easy way out. And in some real cases in Ohio, the children were returned to the biological parents, which I think is very unfortunate when the child has lived happily for many years with the couple he or she knows as Mom and Dad. I wanted a happy ending, which I got, but I didn't want it to look so one-sided that the deck looked stacked. And as a non-believer, if a lot of Faith preaching is added, for me, it only detracts from the drama, and risks becoming corny and trite. If the film were a little livelier or faster paced, I would have given it a 10, but if it were like those who described the book as being, I would have given it a 5 at best.

This movie tells me one thing: some people should NEVER have children. What I saw was a man who hit his wife, spent time in prison and is rewarded only for biology. A lie is a lie: that the Mother LIED when she signed LEGAL paperwork and then LIED in front of a judge? She should have been put in jail. I was disappointed that the adoptive Father offered money for his kid. Stupid for the rich guy to start a fight. But there is a certain type of people who should NEVER reproduce. I realize it sounds like class snobbery and it probably is, but what I saw was a class of people acting like they were brought up by their parents to act.

When the father is an alcoholic abuser and the mother can't stick up for herself, there's always hope that the son will get to a better home. "Like Dandelion Dust" explores that hope and the powers of wealth, love and family.The strength of the film lies in its story-telling. The characters were all painted extremely realistically and even sympathetically, and every scene in the film advanced the plot. Written by Oscar-nominated writer Stephen J. Rivele and Michael Lachance, it certainly comes across as a film driven by the writing. But no matter how interesting the story was, they couldn't completely keep my attention. When we have gritty scenes, we get drab shots. The story really wasn't brought to life."Like Dandelion Dust" is less like a film and more like a novel. And unsurprisingly, it is a novel with the same name by Karen Kingsbury. As I have just learned, Kingsbury is known as a Christian novelist. Although religion is an element in this film, it's presented in a very subtle, questioning way. See "Like Dandelion Dust" because it's a novel, not because it's a Christian novel.