BOGUS (1996) ** It's an ambitious project-making a children's movie about a boy who loses his mother. It's not the sort of thing that most children are interested in hearing about, and Norman Jewison doesn't go out of his way to make it look like things will be all right. It works to the extent that it does, in part, because Whoopi Goldberg is so hopelessly miscast as a businesswoman. She has no idea how to project that magnitude of bland, and her humanity is never anywhere near as buried as that of many. Which is good, because that sort of fate might scare the children as much as car wrecks. Haley Joel Osment says a great deal with his face and body language, which is, after all, how most kids communicate. Jewison has to repeatedly go to the well to liven things up, the well being "imaginary friend" Gérard Depardieu. Depardieu does pretty good as the well, effortlessly throwing out that wonderful and illuminative smile, along with liberal portions of Gallic charm, casualness, and natural philosophy. The sets are supposed to be evolving towards ethereal, I think, but end of more like weird and cheap. Doesn't matter, the film's ultimately about what goes on in your head anyway, and paticularly children's heads; and it's manages to be a surprisingly entertaining family flick whilst making a run at doing so.
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