Rating: PG-13 | Runtime: 102 minutes
Release Date: February 22nd, 2008 (USA)
Studio: New Line Cinema
Director(s): Michel Gondry
Writer(s): Michel Gondry

To all the films with heart and soul.

Michel Gondry has once again used his warped mind to meld together a work that’s personal and touching without ever going too far into sentimentality. For all of you who saw the trailer and thought it’d either beat a one-note joke into the ground or be laugh-out-loud funny at all turns, know that it is neither. I only wish I could have warned the sixteen-year old girls in front of me who were constantly on their cellphones, talking, or making a ruckus en route to the bathroom before yelling “finally!” at the end.

Maybe the mistake was bringing it to a Regal and not letting it lie in its rightful home of at an indie theater like Dipson. The goal isn’t to provide mainstream laughs or Oscar-worthy performances. It’s to teach us to have a whole lot of heart and compassion for the people we love, the town we call home, and the imagination and knowledge that we can make a difference … no matter how small. Be Kind Rewind is a feel-good film that wears its creativity and craft blatantly on its sleeve. Gondry tells the tale of two men hand-crafting movies by molding his own. One that has his personal fingerprints on each frame.

I could go the easy route and say that the acting was subpar, but I really feel like the amateurishness was deliberate. Between Mos Def (who I love as an actor) mumbling, Danny Glover sounding like his teeth were falling out, and Mia Farrow acting so over-the-top happy with broad expressions, the cast proves as unpolished as the “sweded” films they’re shooting. Something about that feel works perfectly, though, and I don’t think the movie would have been as successful if the performances were pristine.

Each actor plays their part to perfection with Jack Black even reining it in to portray a fully-fleshed character rather than the caricatures he’s used to portraying. Sure, you get his manic comedy at times, but his reaction at the end proves he was into this film completely and willing to do whatever was needed for it to succeed. All the supporting roles were great too with brilliant turns from Melonie Diaz (Alma), Irv Gooch (as Wilson), and Marcus Carl Franklin playing an actual child—a departure from his role as Bob Dylan in I’m Not There.

But why am I talking about the acting? That’s the least of my memories from this film. Gondry is a true genius. The way he creates set-pieces and allows each erased VHS to be recreated is astonishing. The true inventiveness comes whenever we’re shown a montage of the crew filming multiple stories at once. Going from 2001 to Umbrellas of Cherbourg to Men in Black—we’re given a brief glimpse at the set-up slowly being turned into a film. Watching a crank with numerous cars spinning while Mos Def and Black are upside in their own looks absolutely absurd until the title flashes on the bottom and you realize it’s the tunnel scene from MiB.

Every second is laced with creativity from a skewed angle showing Black slide down a stair banister subbing in for a fireman’s pole to the fake depth of field to show Black as King Kong grabbing Diaz to the laughably perfect cityscape mat laying on the ground and shot from above to look like characters are falling to their deaths. Gondry might have single-handedly created a phenomenon that will be mimicked and YouTubed in the very near future. Heck, he even “sweded” his own trailer to earn some added press. “Sweded” is the term used to describe the art of recreating movies to the film’s personalized, abridged format. I’ll buy the DVD just to see the full versions as I am sure they’ll be included. (They better be.)

There’s also a story. A race against time to try and save a video store from demolition, complete with an FBI lawsuit about copyright infringement. But that all takes a very far backseat to the human story at the front. The way these films bring this rundown, low-income city together as a community is heartwarming and provides a big payoff for the film. Credit Gondry for knowing what he was doing too. He shows Ghostbusters being filmed, but then only snippets of the rest so as not to ruin the joke.

When the group finally decides to shoot an original story, we’re still intrigued by the workmanship that goes into the process because we haven’t yet been bored by it. And he films the finale the only way he could. As an audience, it really doesn’t matter what the end product is. It’s the reactions of those watching that counts. To see the laughs and tears on the faces of those who helped create their masterpiece is the true endgame I wanted to see. You won’t experience a more charming or original film with enough heart to warm those in it and those in the theatre watching anytime soon.

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Jack Black and Mos Def in BE KIND REWIND.