Little Manhattan (DVD)

Oh To Be Ten Again!

His name was Danny Turner. He was ten and I was nine and he was the love of my life…

Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has hit another home run with Little Manhattan! This film arrives on DVD today and is a must-see for anyone who would like to hear (and try to understand) the inner workings of the ten-year-old male mind. Fox touts this movie as “perfect for kids and adults alike� and I agree that it would be great to watch with your children and discuss whether or not it represents the reality of “coming of age.�

Originally released into only 35 theatres last fall, Little Manhattan is the creation of husband and wife team, Jennifer Flackett (writer) and Mark Levin (director). It uses the voice-over device that became popular in the hit TV series The Wonder Years that Levin co-produced. Throughout the bulk of the movie we are privy to the thoughts of the lead character, Gabe (Josh Hutcherson), as he moves from playing with Rosemary (Charlie Ray) as an equal while a toddler, being oblivious of her existence as they begin the school years, moving to hatred of her as cootie-producing monster, and finally realizing that she is the most beautiful creature alive and the object of his complete adoration and desire. The humor is very amusing and the angst of first love is touching and sweet. (Okay…I can hear the men gagging like they have a hairball, but just watch and see if it doesn’t bring back some very poignant memories!)

As the title says, the film is set in Manhattan. Both children have interesting but very different family situations. Gabe’s parents are in the process of getting divorced, but until the legalities are final, they must by law both remain in their apartment. So Gabe is subjected to the uneasiness of “welcoming� his mother’s dates in the presence of his father. He must also endure name labels on every item in the refrigerator so that one or the other won’t mistakenly eat or drink something that doesn’t belong to them. Rosemary, on the other hand, has very rich and cultured parents who produce a daytime soap. She has a baby sibling and is watched over by a Haitian nanny who constantly looks at Gabe as if he has three eyes, and she lives in a building with a doorman. Gabe habitually compares his life to that of Rosemary and of course determines that she lives in a perfect world.

Gabe goes everywhere on his scooter and is confined to a set limit of blocks he is free to roam. Rosemary lives half a block outside of this radius and so Gabe is pushed by true love to defy the rules of his parents and stretch the boundaries. He waits behind a tree across the street from Rosemary’s building in the hope that she will come out. If she does, he swoops down upon her as if he is “just in the neighborhood.� If she does not appear, or appears and gets into a car, he pushes off with a hangdog demeanor and goes home to stew.

There is a good bit of double standard and the difference of parenting styles in the way these two are being raised. Gabe, the boy, is most often on his own in the middle of one of the biggest cities in the world and no one seems at all worried about it the bulk of the time. Rosemary, on the other hand, goes nowhere without the nanny or her parents and is watched like a hawk.

The main theme of the movie is the experience of first love. Rosemary is the “older� woman (she is eleven) who reminds Gabe that girls mature more quickly than boys but does it in a way that endears her to him all the more. He feels threatened when another male karate student who is better than he is becomes Rosemary’s sparring partner. He spends hours talking to himself and trying to figure out if he should kiss Rosemary or not. He is devastated when Rosemary says that she is too young to tell him, let along any boy, that she loves him.

This is where Fox scores major points with parents again. Earlier this year, the movie Aquamarine refused to give in to the make-believe garbage that teens need to be settling into life-long relationships with the opposite sex at a very young age and that if they don’t, there is something seriously wrong with them. When Gabe’s relationship with Rosemary ends, yes, he feels like his heart is ripped from his chest and left exposed in the dirt for all to see, but after he works through the emotional trauma of love lost, he completely comes to peace with the whole journey. He has experienced that greatest of all wonders—first love. The love that has you hurling into the toilet, second-guessing every word you want to say, and makes you feel like the universe has been ripped out from under your feet when it is gone. BUT… your first love (especially at ten) will not be your last. There will be other girls and then there will be women. What you are left with is something that nobody can ever take away—an experience that cannot be duplicated because it will always be the first.

Bravo to Fox for keeping a proper perspective on the relationships between boys and girls!!