Paper Planes
[Palm Springs International Film Festival 2015 report]
Just because a film is for kids doesn’t absolve it from the rules of good storytelling. Like avoid the hackneyed and predictable in both plot and dialogue. Like give your villain enough depth that he’s not a walking, smirking caricature. Like turn off the goddamn cue-the-emotions music for just three seconds. These flaws aren’t fatal to the Australian effort PAPER PLANES–about a boy (Ed Oxenbould) who gets into an international paper airplane championship despite the odds stacked against him, principally a dad (Sam Worthington) paralyzed by grief over the death his wife (see above rule #1, avoid the hackneyed…like Sainted Dead Mother syndrome, in soft-focus slo-mo flashback, of course). But they’ll leave anyone over the age of 10 feeling like they’ve bathed in saccharine. –YSM