Review of King of California (2007) by Walter M — 30 Sep 2008
[font=Century Gothic]In "King of California," Miranda(Evan Rachel Wood) is unlike other sixteen year-olds in that she does not go to school. Potential classmates would be envious until they found out that she works full time at a fast food restaurant in order to support herself since her mother is long gone and her father Charlie(Michael Douglas), an occasional jazz musician, is in a mental hospital.(In order to maintain her independence, she plays a shell game with her mother, several government agencies and probably a foreign government or two...) All is right in the world until Charlie is released and brings his daughter along on a hunt for buried treasure...[/font].
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[font=Century Gothic]Influenced by "Don Quixote" and "The Tempest," "King of California" is a highly entertaining movie with excellent performances from the leads, especially from Michael Douglas who has rarely been so relaxed and unselfconscious. As enjoyable as the movie is, it does not avoid the subject of Charlie's manic depression. A suicide attempt led to his being confined in the first place. And throughout the movie, he is apparently at the manic end of the pendulum, quite possibly off his medication.[/font].
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[font=Century Gothic]What the movie is especially concerned with is history in a world where there are no adventures left and how we can learn a lot by shutting off the television and reading a book.(I know Miranda's diorama may seem like a throwaway gag but it is part of this too.) Charlie is obsessed with the history that he suspects is lying just beneath his feet and which has been covered over by identical housing units and box stores, taking away the meanings from place names in the process.(It should be noted that [font=Century Gothic]the product placement is handled very ambiguously.) This is nothing new as [/font]Spanish conquerors obliterated traces of the native population in colonial times. [/font].
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This review of King of California (2007) was written by Walter M on 30 Sep 2008.
King of California has generally received positive reviews.
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