Hearts in Atlantis (2001)
A nostalgia dipped story about childhood memories and a young boy (and his two friends) struggling for their places in their young world. By its nature, and with the support of some terrific acting, the story will move you. But it is also a somewhat simplified idea of a boy looking for stability and friendship without a father and with a mother more interested in her questionable career.
Writer Stephen King knows how to get a series of hooks going in a story, and the one supernatural twist here is that leading man Ted, played by Anthony Hopkins, can read minds. (This has apparently led him to enormous wins at poker, which has made him a target of angry mobsters, though this part of the story is left sketchy.) The boy senses something special in Ted, and their friendship grows to where Ted begins to look out for the boy, protecting and guiding him.
And so this is filmed in the late 1950s (or maybe 1960, judging by the most recent cars), and it has a little sweet aura to it all. There is an overlay in contemporary times that is unnecessary, though it wraps things up nicely for people who like that. It's all enjoyable but not very deep or even, surprisingly, very surprising.
A nostalgia dipped story about childhood memories and a young boy (and his two friends) struggling for their places in their young world. By its nature, and with the support of some terrific acting, the story will move you. But it is also a somewhat simplified idea of a boy looking for stability and friendship without a father and with a mother more interested in her questionable career.
Writer Stephen King knows how to get a series of hooks going in a story, and the one supernatural twist here is that leading man Ted, played by Anthony Hopkins, can read minds. (This has apparently led him to enormous wins at poker, which has made him a target of angry mobsters, though this part of the story is left sketchy.) The boy senses something special in Ted, and their friendship grows to where Ted begins to look out for the boy, protecting and guiding him.
And so this is filmed in the late 1950s (or maybe 1960, judging by the most recent cars), and it has a little sweet aura to it all. There is an overlay in contemporary times that is unnecessary, though it wraps things up nicely for people who like that. It's all enjoyable but not very deep or even, surprisingly, very surprising.