We Bought a Zoo

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Movie Details

• Genre: Comedy, Drama, Family
• Release Date: 2011-12-23 Nationwide
• Running Time: 124 min.
• Director: Cameron Crowe
• Cast: Scarlett Johansson, Matt Damon, Elle Fanning, Carla Gallo, Thomas Haden Church, Patrick Fugit, Stephanie Szostak, Colin Ford, John Michael Higgins, Desi Lydic
• Writer: Aline Brosh McKenna, Cameron Crowe, Benhamin Mee
• Distributor: 20th Century Fox
• Official Site: We Bought a Zoo Official Site

Six years off from feature filmmaking, Cameron Crowe returns with a film he did not write, but one he rewrote, based on the real-life story of Benjamin Mee, a Brit newspaper columnist who picked up from his idyllic new digs in the South of France and went off to rescue an English zoo with his family, including a son, a daughter, and a dying wife. Crowe's movie changes these circumstances around a bit: The wife is six months gone in We Bought a Zoo before Benjamin (the quite-American Matt Damon), moody 14-year-old son Dylan (Colin Ford), and bright-'n'-shiny seven-year-old Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones, made for the movies) consider the move. And here, they don't relocate from the French paradise to the English countryside, but from a Los Angeles suburb to the rolling hills of Southern California, where dad hopes to escape the ghost who haunts them all. And look who's here to help: Scarlett Johansson. Crowe, who ran Aline Brosh McKenna's first draft through Word before signing on to direct someone else's life, is back to what he's good at: small stories populated by everyday people. Helping Crowe's odds is Damon, who does a superior job of vacillating between wide-eyed (Look! A grizzly bear!) and misty-eyed (I wish my dead wife weren't dead) without turning Benjamin into a complete sap. Damon has never been more lovable — the guy looks like he could use a hug.