Review of Benny & Joon (1993) by Chris K — 20 Feb 2009

I think this movie portrays mental illness in a very naïve, unrealistic, inconsistent, and irresponsible way in order to make it fit into a sappy romance. I can maybe give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were trying to do this half-allegorically as a way of reminding us that people with mental illnesses are still people with real feelings, which is absolutely true, but the way this is done is really inappropriate.

I can't give it too low a rating though, because they actually did succeed in making it a feel-good movie aside from that... plus it has Julianne Moore.