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30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
All you need is love - no matter how quirky it might be, 21 Aug 2005
I've been a fan of Mary Stuart Masterson ever since I saw Some Kind of Wonderful, and Johnny Depp plays the kind of quirky characters I usually like, but something had kept me away from Benny & Joon all this time. Partly, it was the fact that I caught a few minutes of the movie on TV and saw Depp doing a whole vaudeville routine that smacked a little too much of mimes - like every sane person in the world, I detest mimes. At last, though, I have seen the film and I can declare it a wonderful motion picture - quirky, most certainly, but good and exceedingly human. It does stretch the theme of love conquers all just a bit, but who cares?Mary Stuart Masterson plays Joon, a young woman with a mental illness that is never clearly delineated - she's been known to start little fires, she sometimes hears voices in her head, and there is a somewhat childlike character to her nature. Aidan Quinn plays her brother Benny, a truly good guy who puts his sister's needs ahead of his own - even if it means turning down dinner with a hot chick. The siblings are approaching a crossroads, though - Joon has just run off another housekeeper, Benny can't find anyone to stay with her during the day, and all the while Joon's doctor is urging Benny to put her in a group home. Then Sam (Johnny Depp) arrives, after Joon wins him in a poker game - he's one of Benny's buddy's cousins, and he's driving the guy crazy. Benny takes him home temporarily, and things soon begin to change around the house. Sam is even weirder than Joon (he makes grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron, for example), so naturally the two hit it off quite well. He has his own problems, but his quirky ways and Buster Keaton-inspired antics quickly win over Benny and most especially Joon. Benny even starts seeing a local girl named Ruthie (Julianne Moore), whom Sam immediately recognized as a B-movie actress from a few years past. Then, of course, romantic love rears its ugly head, and things go south in a hurry for everyone concerned, pushing Joon into a serious episode that shows Sam just how sick she really is. Aidan Quinn is quite good in his role of Benny (and Julianne Moore is a nice bonus for the film), but Depp and Masterson clearly carry the story with their characters' quirky antics and heart-warming commitment to one another. As I alluded to, I'm not a fan of the whole Buster Keaton comedy shtick, but Depp proves a master at it, and he and Masterson have a real chemistry between them. There's high drama alongside a fair amount of subdued comedy, but Benny & Joon is an unashamedly feel-good movie, quite predictable yet charming and touching - and blessed with an extremely talented cast.
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