My Friend Joe (1996)

This was a very touching film. Joe/Joanne was a very pitiful character; she deserved much more sympathy/respect/kindness than she actually got in the movie. I lost track of how many times during the movie I said to myself, "I wish I could hug Joe/Joanne." It was great to see Joe/Joanne find an out for her troubles at the circus by virtue of her friendship to Chris; it was also great for Chris to transform from timid to brave by virtue of this friendship. This was a very special bond between the two, courtesy of the bracelets they exchanged as a symbol of their friendship. This bond wasn't even broken by Joe revealing her true gender (and name) to Chris. Also, thanks to his newly acquired audacity, Chris managed to track down Joe/Joanne after she is taken away by her cruel Uncle Curt, and he even identified Curt as the man who hit him while taking Joanne away. I now wonder if the other boys Chris hung out with (Boyler and co.) see Chris any differently at the end compared to at the beginning. What keeps me from giving it a 10, however, is the fact that I felt Joe/Joanne's true gender was rather obvious from the very beginning (based on the color of her clothes, her relatively high-pitched voice, and the length of her wig hair) - even though no one outside of the circus suspected her of not being a boy until her self-disclosure to Chris and his family.

Although I won't go into a deep comparison between the movie and the book it is difficult not to mention it. The movie is based on a book written by a German-Swedish writer, Peter Pohl and is called Janne, min vän (Johnny, My Friend). First of all they both deserve a lot more attention than they got. The book can easily be at my top 3 favourite books, no other book has managed to touch my soul to that degree, to feel compassion for the characters, make me laugh or even cry. And the movie which unfortunately doesn't stick to the book and can't generate the same deep emotions can easily make many Disney movies cower in shame. The book starts from the ending and you join the young narrator Chris, friend of Johnny/Joe into his journey to memories trying to find the clues, the missed details to figure out what has happened. That's why I strongly recommend not to read the synopsis, not to see the movie, not browse the cast and stop reading my comments at this point and read the book (don't read the synopsis at the back page of the book either)Let's stick to the movie now. Here is the story: A 12(?) year old Irish boy named Chris is having problems to be accepted to the gang that his friends had formed, because he is afraid of everything. He is always slow on the bicycle, he is afraid to swim, he is afraid to climb to the tree house that his father(?) made for him. Until an American boy named Joe appears and joins the gang. Everyone is excited about the things he can do with his bike and how he seems that isn't afraid of anything. But Joe apparently has a secret. He vanishes for days without notice, no one knows why, no one knows where he lives, and he refuses to talk about it. Great aura of mystery, isn't it? But here the movie manages to spoil everything from the first minutes of the movie. The movie is still fun to watch from the beginning to the end though and delivers a sweet feeling.The music. Well, I didn't like it. Sometimes it was distracting, the theme was oversiplistic and it didn't always fit to the occasion. Anyway it isn't a Hollywood movie. The picture has some noise and isn't very good quality(even on DVD) , the direction gets the job done, nothing special here (don't expect any special effects) didn't notice any problems either. The performances. Schuyler Fisk's performance is phenomenal, plain and simple. It is like she was born for this role(no, really) and I can't imagine someone else playing Joe. Underrated actor that grew up and didn't become the hot chick so she can play the classic Boy meets Girl, Girl meets Boy Hollywood story. Anyway. Stephen McHattie is very good at the role of the bad guy and generally everyone else plays their roles professionally. Sometimes it isn't easy to understand what kids are saying (except Joe) and Suzie's acting has issues though.Well, what else I can say. This movie deserves 90 minutes of your time. It is a good movie for kids(but not exclusively). It won't be easy to find it though, I was searching it for years until I found it on amazon.de. I hope for a proper closer to the book remake :-)I also recommend the book. I consider it a masterpiece that anyone despite his age must read(it was/is advertised as a book for kids, but I consider it as a book for adults, or older children, without excluding younger children). Book gets a 11/10 ;-)