Rob Reiner's Flipped (2010) - Movie Review & Summary

Flipped is a movie adapted from a young adult novel entitled Flipped written by Wendelin Van Draneen.

This movie is directed by Rob Reiner and has comedy drama romance genre with 1 hour and 30 minutes length. It was made in earlier 2010 and released in theatres on 10^th September, 2010 with 1960 setting. Flipped won Best Performance in a Feature Film in Young Artist Award 2011, and got 3 nominations such as; Best Comedy in AARP Movies for Grownups award 2011, Truly Moving Picture Award in Heartland Film 2010, and Best Performance in a Feature Film.¹

Flipped is a refreshing and heartwarming movie telling about a love story between a girl and a boy. The girl, Julie Baker (Madeline Caroll) likes the boy; Bryce Loski (Callan McAuliffe) since the first time they meet. The movie begins with a first meeting between Julie Baker and Bryce Loski, when Bryce moves to a home near her house. Six years since that day, Julie has been following around Bryce and it is hard for Bryce to avoid Julie since they go the same school and live across the street with each other. Bryce’s plan to ask a girl whom Julie hates the most for a date works for a while so Julie stops following him. The story continues to a problem between Bryce and Julie’s family. Bryce’s father really does not like anything about Julie and her family. As time goes by, there are many things happen, the love story flips. Bryce becomes the one who always runs into Julie when the girl changes her mind about Bryce.

 
This movie contains of family-drama. Bryce’s father (Anthony Edwards), really hates and likes to criticize all about Julie and her family. All beyond Bryce’s father’s hate to Julie’s family, Bryce knows that his father has a deep sadness in his self; he is angry with his own self.

At a glance, Flipped is dominated with a series of a boring love-story drama, but the director Rob Reiner found a way to present a good story of first love and family drama which looks very real. I like the movie because of the way it is presented. First, the movie tells the story through the eyes and the thoughts of Bryce and then through the eyes and the thoughts of Julie. While we know that sometimes, the repetition of a story can make audience bored, but surprisingly this movie doesn’t even make us feel that way². Even though it contains a lot of repetition stories, it is fun because even Julie has a very different point of view about what is happening between Bryce and her, and sometimes it is out of what I expected about their own feeling too.

I cannot find the weaknesses from this movie but when I look into the details of the movie, there are some missing scenes that makes me astonished. One of the missing scenes is a scene in a morning when Julie is on a tree and she doesn’t want to go down from the tree knowing that the tree will be cut. Later on, a bus school arrives under the tree and stops, then the scene continues to a close-up shot of Julie asking Bryce to climb the tree and then the shot goes to Julie looking down at the Bryce and I realized that the bus has moved about a meter backwards.

The moral value we can take is how different people can perceive the same events quite differently, so we have to learn how to understand people around us, how to treat people and how to appreciate them. Mr. Loski, Bryce’s father is a character in this movie stands as an example of what not to do in our life. I give 3.5 stars from 5 stars for this movie and recommend it for family watching time. Parental Guiding is required for the children.

 For the last, I will quote a sentence I like from this movie told by Chet Duncan; Bryce’s grandpa to Bryce:

“I hate to see you swam out so far where you can’t swim back. It’s about honesty, son. Sometimes a little discomfort in the beginning can save a whole lot of pain in the road.”

            

*****

Writer: Ummu Imro'atus Sholihah

References list       :

¹Ebert, R. (2010). Flipped. Retrieved May, 16, 2016 from http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/flipped-2010

²Holden, S. (2010). Young Love, Back When It Was Sweet and Innocent. The New York Times. Retrieved May, 16, 2016 from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/movies/27flipped.html?_r=0

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