Customer Reviews

The Wizard of Loneliness [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a great movie starring Lukas Haas and Lea Thompson about a child during World War 2 who moves into a small Vermont town with his eccentric Grandparents who rebels at first but then likes his newly found situation with trials and tribulations along the way.It's a must see!!

This is one of the first to go into my personal movie collection and it remains one of my favorites. It's in the top twenty favorites of ~ 1,300 movies. Someone is missing the boat by not releasing it in DVD format.

I have upgraded most of my early addition VHS movies to DVD or BRD and I find that watching VHS is barely tolerable. This movie is one for which I gladly make the sacrifice (while mumbling my complaint about not being able to buy a digital version).

So if you still have the capability and on occasion actually do watch a movie on VHS, The Wizard of Loneliness would be an excellent choice.

Regards,
Ed

I expected this, based on other reviews, to be a period piece, a moving, boy's coming of age hearwarming story within a WWII family. Having grown up myself during the era, I can only say that if there were dysfunctional families like this "Wizard's," I surely never met any of them. Recalling Lucas Hass's outstanding childhood performances in other roles, both my husband and I expected a good deal more, and although there was nothing wrong with his performance, or anyone else's, there was a good deal amiss with the characters of everyone in it. Slow moving, there seemed no purpose and very little drama to it.

There is full out swearing in it, which I surely did not expect in a movie about a middle class family set in that period, and the Hollywood "has to have" sex scenes.
About a quarter of the way through it my husband said, "Is this movie going anywhere?" I replied that I didn't know. He gave up on it; I stuck it out for about another quarter, and then when the big sexual seduction scene came on, gave it up. It might be it redeemed itself before the end, but I'd given it all the patience I could muster, so popped it out and rewound.

I guess I should have read the book reviews on the book by the title it was supposedly based upon before purchase. This is based upon a used VHS copy purchased, so investment was slight. I'd suggest that any interested parties try to rent it before adding it to a home collection.