“The Peanut Butter Falcon” Is Flying High

Release Date：Aug/9/2019
Genre：Adventure/Comedy/Drama
Director：Tyler Nilson、Michael Schwartz
Cast：Shia LaBeouf、Dakota Johnson、Zack Gottsagen、John Hawkes

Viola's Rating：8.6







Do you have a dream that you really want to fulfill? Would you do everything to make it come true? “The Peanut Butter Falcon” is a feature film talking about how the main character with Down syndrome reaches his dream with the help of his friends. After being given a limited theatrical release on August 9^th, 2019, it has received Audience Choice Awards from Crested Butted Film Festival, Deauville Film Festival and Nantucket Film Festival as an independent film.

As a modern retelling of the Huckleberry Finn story, this adventurous comedy-drama depicts how Zak (Zack Gottsagen) runs away from his care home to make his dream of becoming a wrestler come true.

Since friends play a critical role in “The Peanut Butter Falcon”, friendship is no doubt one of the themes. “Friends are the family you choose.” is the key quote of the film. If for some reason one has no family, friends are those who’ll always be there for you, and through Zak’s adventure with friends, the audience gets to see how important friendship can be in one’s life and how does that affect each one of us.

Aside from the touching elements of friendship and Zak being a Down syndrome patient, “The Peanut Butter Falcon” is both humorous and poetic. As mentioned before, this flick is a modern retelling of the Huckleberry Finn story, throughout the motion picture, not only did the name Mark Twain is mentioned to be funny, but also did a bunch of scenes that are similar to the Mississippi river journey show up to remind moviegoers of the classic American literature work.

Besides, protagonists keep saying that they want to have “story to tell”, something they can pass on to their descendants as some celebrated family tales, and their whole trip itself is indeed a story to tell. Not based on true story, of course “The Peanut Butter Falcon” seems a little bit exaggerated, even far from reality, but it’s not for the means of theatrical effect, but for fulfilling its poetic connection.

Basically, there are only three main characters in “The Peanut Butter Falcon”, but the reason why the plot can propel forward is one word “promise”. In the movie “High School Musical”, the leading actor gives out a large number of promises, but doesn’t keep his words. “Promise is a very big word.” said the leading actress in “High School Musical”. With such core value in mind, Zak and friends have no reason to fail their mission.

As if the picture is telling the true story of a famous wrestler, “The Peanut Butter Falcon” provides the titular character a platform to be a superhero, even just once. The feature film builds up an ambience that after watching it for two hours, everyone shouts and cheers whenever the legendary wrestler “PBF” flies high in the ring, and the inspiring and positive attitude the film teaches us will definitely last long.

Picture Credit: IMDb