{"id":24186,"date":"2013-02-07T20:38:19","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T04:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=24186"},"modified":"2013-02-08T08:36:05","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T16:36:05","slug":"old-stock-james-genn-2012-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=24186","title":{"rendered":"Old Stock (James Genn, 2012): Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Jacob Dekker<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013.<\/p>\n

\"\"“Growing old is mandatory. \u00a0Growing up is optional,” is the tagline for James Genn’s Old Stock. \u00a0Set in Canada this film is\u00a0primarily a coming of age story. \u00a0As the tagline hints to the film is about a young man named Stock living with his grandfather in a retirement during a transitional phase in his life.<\/p>\n

Our young protagonist Stock, played by Noah Reid, leads a pretty average life except he lives in a retirement home with his grandfather. \u00a0He partakes in a lot of activities that older men do, and he even takes medicine you would expect an elderly person to take. \u00a0Things seem to going great for young Stock until he is forced to move out of the retirement home and pursue a life outside of the home. \u00a0Reluctantly, he moves out and tries to find himself. \u00a0Throughout the film you might find\u00a0yourself chuckling at parts, but if you are looking for a laugh-out-loud comedy you probably won’t get that in Old Stock. \u00a0Instead, by the second half the film attempts to pull at the viewers heart strings with some dramatic moments, realizations, and romances that the characters are faced with. \u00a0Some of this works, and some of it does not.<\/p>\n

There is no denying that this is a smart and well put together film, but a lot of the supporting characters fall into stereotypical roles that one has come to expect from independent romantic comedies. \u00a0Girl with weird hobbies or quirks–check, girl who dies her hair strange colors–check, \u00a0awkward protagonist–check, and the list goes on. \u00a0Some of the dramatic moments felt forced, and Stock’s love story was bland and\u00a0unoriginal. \u00a0It reminded me of Juno without the witty charm. \u00a0Despite these hiccups Noah Reid did an excellent job with the character Stock, and the soft, but colorful mise-en-scene really brings him to life. \u00a0He is a very interesting character with a rich backstory. \u00a0His\u00a0subtle\u00a0shifts from dramatic to comical work well, and he does it very convincingly. \u00a0Near the end, the film tries to throw a couple curveballs at the\u00a0viewer, but they were either so obvious I did not care or they had to do with characters who just weren’t interesting.<\/p>\n

Even with all the negatives I still found this film is still enjoyable. \u00a0While it didn’t offer anything fresh to the genre it still has it’s laughs. And though it may not stick with you for long; it’s not a bad way to spend an hour and a half<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Jacob Dekker.\u00a0 Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2013. “Growing old is mandatory. \u00a0Growing up is optional,” is the tagline for James Genn’s Old Stock. \u00a0Set in Canada this film is\u00a0primarily a coming of age story. \u00a0As the tagline hints to the film is about a young man named Stock living with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1913,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,191],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2013"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1913"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}