Lolli's Filmseiten

Benny And Joon

Inhalt & Kritik

Tragiekomödie mit Johnny Depp. Seit Jahrzehnten opfert sich der Automechaniker Benny für seine Schwester Joon auf: Streß läßt bei ihr Schitzophrenie-Anfälle aus, außerdem hat die junge Frau einen Hang zum Zündeln. Als Joon bei einem Pokerspiel den verträumten Sam "gewinnt", nimmt Bruder Benny den Buster Keaton-Fan tatsächlich bei sich auf. Sam stellt den Haushalt der Geschwister auf den Kopf: Er kann zwar kaum lesen, aber Käsetoast mit dem Bügeleisen zubereiten und Parkspaziergänge in Slapstick-Shows verwandeln. Zunächst ist Benny begeistert, daß Sams Zuwendung Joon heiter und ausgeglichen macht. Als er jedoch erfährt, das die Verliebten miteinander geschlafen haben, wirft er Sam kurzerhand hinaus. Joon und ihr Freund beschließen, gemeinsam zu fliehen.
Narren und Geisteskranke sind die gütigeren und kreativeren Menschen: Der naiven Botschaft des Skripts zum Trotz erhebt Regisseur Chechik den Zeigefinger in seiner Love-Story nie zu hoch. Virtuos wechselt der Film zwischen Melancholie und Übermut, wozu neben dem beschwingten Schnitt vor allem die Darsteller beitragen: Mary Stuart Masterson läßt hinter Joons verletzlichem Äußeren stets unberechenbare Aggressivität durchschneiden, und Johnny Depps skurrile Pantomime-Einschlag geraten herrlich unkitschig.

TV Spielfilm

(...) If I had been reading the screenplay of "Benny and Joon," I would have started to form ominous misgivings at about this point, since the conceit of bringing a character like Sam into the story seems a little too precious. But Depp pulls it off. In "Edward Scissorhands" he demonstrated two of the skills that are crucial to his performance in "Benny and Joon": He was able to build an essentially wordless performance out of expression and gesture, and he had natural physical grace.
Here, without ever explaining himself, he simply behaves sometimes in the real world in the way Keaton and Chaplin behaved in their movie worlds.
There is a moment at a lunch counter, for example, when he sticks two forks into two dinner rolls, holds them under his chin, and moves them to suggest that the rolls are his feet, and he is dancing. It's a steal from "The Gold Rush," but done with an offhand charm that makes it work all over again.
(...) Most people would side with Benny in his opposition to the talk of marriage, but the movie suggests that love and magic can overcome madness, and for at least the length of the film I was prepared to accept that. Much of the credit for that goes to Depp, who takes a character that might have seemed unplayable on paper, and makes him into the kind of enchanter who might be able to heal Joon. Mary Stuart Masterson, from "Fried Green Tomatoes" usually plays commonsensical, sane characters; this time she shows Joon able to swing in an instant from calm to rage, picking on little things that set her off. It's a convincing performance.
And Aidan Quinn, in a somewhat thankless role as the movie's reality base and opponent of love, never plays a scene simply for its obvious point, but lets us see that his love for his sister underlies all of his decisions.
"Benny and Joon" is a tough sell. Younger moviegoers these days seem to shy away from complexities, which is why the movie and its advertising all shy away from any implication of mental illness. The film is being sold as an offbeat romance between a couple of lovable kooks. I was relieved to discover it was about so much more than that.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Although it too often succumbs to the kind of whimsical sentimentality about the mentally ill that has afflicted movies from King of Hearts to The Fisher King, this filmed-in-Spokane comedy-drama is almost salvaged by its excellent cast.
(...) Screenwriter Barry Berman, a former circus clown who toured for years with Ringling Brothers & Barnum Bailey, gives each character something to do that keeps them from becoming merely types. There's a Fellini-esque quality to this script that's reinforced by a score by Rachel Portman that recalls the late Nino Rota's music for Fellini's La Strada, another fable about clowns, simpletons, artists and holy fools.
In the original script (and the original publicity for the film), Joon was described as schizophrenic, but the word was deleted from the soundtrack and the press kit after preview audiences reacted poorly to this clinical description of her state.
That's too bad, in one sense, because it seems to deny the seriousness of Joon's problems. On the other hand, it's in keeping with the film's intention to remove labels. Berman and his Canadian director, Jeremiah Chechik ( National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation), always emphasize that these are people, not categories, and they have the cast to demonstrate it.
In the end, however, removing this word seems dishonest. It allows the filmmakers to suggest that mental illness can be cute, that it's just another form of expression, and that love can conquer all afflictions.

John Hartl, Film.de

(...) As an "offbeat" hero, Depp's so conventionally drawn, he could start his own sitcom after this. ("Tuesday, Johnny's lost his hat and Mary Stuart Masterson's lost her mind! Be there!") With no reference to the real Keaton, the twentysomething audience (and under) might just perceive poignance in Depp's bubblegum-idol presence. They might relate to cutely addled Masterson, who can't eat the raisins in her tapioca because they were once grapes with life in them. Perhaps they won't agree that the movie's riddled with insufferably contrived zaniness, or that it deals as deeply with mental illness as "The Sound of Music" explored the genocidal advance of the Third Reich.

Desson Howe, Washington Post