I had a chance several months ago to see Central Station for free and didn't go because it looked like a sappy film and it starred a child. But so many people have told me since then that they liked it that I decided to give it a chance. I enjoyed it more than I expected to several months ago, but not as much as my friends' reviews led me to hope. To me, it needed about half an hour shaved off, less sentiment (but then I'm a hard-hearted cynic), and a better explanation of why this crusty woman would drop everything and take under her wing a snotty little kid instead of just handing him over to the proper authorities.
The explanation offered by the movie is one I strongly resent: that women grow to be bitter and lonely unless they have children. Nor did I care for the secondary explanation, which was that the city is evil and sucks the life from everyone who lives there, but the country folk are uniformly good people. This contrast is made especially blatant by the letters people pay Dora, the main character, to write for them. In the city, all the letters are sad, lonely, yearning. But in the country, everyone wants to send messages of happiness and thanks. (See The Horse Whisperer for the Americanized version of this theory.)
Overall, once I swallowed the main premise, I enjoyed the movie, and I'm sure someone less bitter than myself (that would be all of you) wouldn't find it too sappy.
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