The Glass Castle: A Shattered Dream

Release Date：Aug/11/2017

Genre：Biography/Drama

Director：Destin Daniel Cretton

Cast：Brie Larson 、Naomi Watts 、Woody Harrelson、Sarah Snook

Viola's Rating：6.1

Maybe every kid dreams of a glass castle, or maybe even adults dream of it as well. However, it might fade away while time passes. Fortunately, it’s not necessarily bad if the castle never gets built, but always keeping the hope doesn’t guarantee anything positive either.

Based on Jeannette Walls' 2005 memoir of the same name, “The Glass Castle” depicts how a young girl, Jeannette Walls, comes of age in a dysfunctional family of nonconformist nomads with a mother who's an eccentric artist and an alcoholic father who would stir the children's imagination with hope as a distraction to their poverty.

There are a bunch of contradictions in the feature film. The name itself is a dream that never comes true for the Walls children, and more symbols are presented in the film to emphasize that their father only talks other than does what he says.

“The Glass Castle” is told as Jeannette’s memory surrounding what she saw as a child and what she has experienced in this dysfunctional but somehow warm family. Starting from the grown-up Jeannette and her interaction between her fiancé, the storyline jumps back and forth between adulthood and childhood. The editing of the motion picture is well-designed. Smooth transitions were made to connect two different time frames through same elements. Even though the movie is 127 minute long, the tense tempo and well-knit plot won’t give its audience any boredom.

Since the Walls’ is no ordinary family, a host of extreme stories are told not only in the memoir but also the picture. Some of these situations are too crazy to be accepted as true events that happened to the Walls’ family before. However, even if it’s hard to believe those stories, critics are not satisfied with the feature film embellishing the truth which is much scarier and uglier. Of course Jeannette wrote this memoir to commemorate her father, but along with her siblings, they wouldn’t agree with their dad’s way raising them up no matter how much they miss him.

As many other films that are based on true stories, footages and pictures are put in the end of “The Glass Castle”. Moviegoers get to see how the Walls family talks about their father and the way they used to live their lives.

Revealing the lifestyle is part of the main purpose of publishing the memoir, but it’s not to condemn Ray Walls, the father of this amazing family. Therefore, heart-tugging moments are shown in the motion picture, which indicate that Ray is no other than an ordinary father that loves his children in all aspects. It’s just his usual way raising kids isn’t what people consider normal and proper.

“The Glass Castle” gives you tears and reminds you of your own family within 127 minutes. Even though you don’t get to see the castle built, it provides you some food for thoughts, and lures you to read the original memoir for more. 

Picture Credit: IDMb