For Your Consideration

I saw a movie the other day that I really need to tell you about....
This particular picture got my mind cranking like no other has for some time. It's not necessarily a good movie, but I can't in good conscience call it BAD, either. Really, I'm having a bit of trouble deciding WHAT to think. Friends, I've simply got to get to the bottom of this film and devote an entire post to it.

I'm talking about Pumpkin.


Pumpkin may very well be the weirdest motion picture I have ever seen (and that says a lot). But here's the problem: the film isn't WEIRD-weird; it's just...like...I-don't-know-what-the-heck-the-director-was-aiming-for weird. Does that make any sense? It's either absolutely terrible, or gloriously brilliant. I don't know which.

If you do some research on Pumpkin, you'll find opinions on the film widely vary. Some folks defend it as an example of hilarious black comedy; others insist that it's offensive, unbalanced, and stupid. What am I supposed to think? Well, for one thing, I think this one had definite potential. At times, I really liked where it was going, but then it would STOP, and go flying off in a completely different direction. Does that make it too smart for me, or just poorly executed?

I can say this: if I ever get to produce a movie of my own, it may very well end up being a remake of Pumpkin. Yes, I want to do a full-blown remake of this sucker, only with much more humor. As I watched the film, I silently rewrote its script to make it funnier, and I believe I'd have a real winner on my hands if the opportunity to tackle such a project were ever to arise. My version would be HILARIOUS!


But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's actually check out Pumpkin before I get into why I'm so convinced it's good -- and bad -- enough to warrant a remake.

Pumpkin (2002)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265591/

Netflix description:
When perfect, perky Carolyn (Christina Ricci) and her Alpha Omega Pi sisters decide to coach mentally challenged athletes for the regional Challenged Games, Carolyn's assigned to coach Pumpkin (Hank Harris), a young disabled man who touches her heart. She's terrified at first, but to the horror of her friends -- and Pumpkin's overprotective mother (Brenda Blethyn) -- Carolyn starts to falls in love.

Pumpkin stars Christina Ricci as Carolyn, a clueless sorority chick who is forced to help a mentally handicapped young man prepare for a Special Olympics-style event. She's not happy about it at first, even protesting to her sorority leader that "such people" shouldn't be grotesquely paraded around for public viewing. Yup, our Carolyn is the typical air-headed rich girl. To her, the most important thing in the world is to win Sorority of the Year. In fact, that's why she finally agrees to go along with the community service thing and mentor the mentally challenged -- it'll help make her sorority look good.

Well, the retarded dude who gets paired up with Carolyn is named Pumpkin. He's got some kind of physical ailment that keeps him in a wheelchair most of the time, and frankly, he sucks at throwing the javelin (BIG strike against any guy, if you ask me). As Carolyn approaches, Pumpkin just sits there drooling on himself and mumbling. But when he looks into her eyes for the first time, everything about the kid seems to change. He gets up out of his wheelchair in an attempt to impress her and, to Carolyn's horror, whispers to her that she's his best friend. Awwww....

Carolyn is mortified by the whole ordeal, but for some reason, can't stop thinking about poor Pumpkin. As the weeks go by, she starts hanging out with him more and more in her spare time, at one point even setting him up on a blind date. Now THAT, to me, was the funniest scene in the entire film -- when Carolyn organizes a friggin' blind date between her overweight friend and a retarded guy. I mean, can you imagine??? Any character insensitive enough to do something like THAT is clearly worth analyzing. Carolyn ranks right up there with Jerri Blank, from Comedy Central's Strangers with Candy, as among the most hilariously self-absorbed personalities of all-time. The best part about the situation is that she doesn't even understand why her friend is so upset.

Needless to say, the blind date doesn't go so well, and Pumpkin remains available. Bad news for Carolyn, as it means she'll continue to think about, and feel sorry for, him. Could it be that Carolyn is...*gulp*...attracted to Pumpkin???


Of course she is, and the two end up "getting it on." As is always the case in movies like this, Pumpkin's overbearing mother discovers their affair, and banishes Carolyn from her home, shouting words like "rapist" and "prostitute" while our heroine flees through a back entrance. But will that keep Carolyn and Pumpkin apart??? You'll have to see the film for yourself to find out.

Now here's the problem with Pumpkin: it doesn't follow through with any of its funnier ideas. Take Carolyn, for example. She's an incredibly air-headed and selfish young lady. To me, a character like her could make just about any situation amusing by simply reacting to it in an inappropriate way. Why is it that Carolyn does the right thing about half the time, and the wrong thing the other half? Playing up her stupidity and cluelessness to its full potential would have served this film well. Again, I turn to the example of Jerri Blank, from Strangers with Candy -- she was always walking away from serious matters having learned the opposite of what she should have learned, and that shtick alone carried an entire TV series through three excellent seasons. Why does Carolyn have to be semi-intelligent? I know it's a cheap way to go, but, in all honestly, Pumpkin would have been much funnier if she were a total caricature.

Same goes for the whole sorority thing. We get the sense that Pumpkin is supposed to be lampooning that culture, but it's never taken far enough. I wanted more gags about dumb sorority chicks and frat geeks! Make it clear that we're supposed to be laughing at these people!!!


This kind of problem is difficult to describe, but it permeates the entirety of Pumpkin. The movie sets out in one promising direction, only to pull back right when it starts to get somewhere. See it for yourself, and let me know if you got the same feeling; like it's afraid to go where it wants to go, even though it's already kind of crossed the line, anyway. I mean, this whole film just feels so very...awkward. Why is it holding back?

In general, Pumpkin should have been goofier. I would have punched this bad boy way up while preserving the same core premise of love and prejudice, etc, etc. What if that overweight friend of Carolyn's had actually LIKED Pumpkin? Imagine that -- a running joke about a retarded guy in a wheelchair trying to avoid a fat chick with a crush on him. That would be funny! And why wasn't Carolyn's angry poetry professor used more? Here, we had a perfectly likable character, and the film barely acknowledges him! In my version, this dude would have been around more, throwing out MF-words like nobody's business. There are countless examples of things already in Pumpkin that could have been played up to enhance its enjoyability.

(Pumpkin star Christina Ricci)

The film's most telling moment comes towards the end during a car crash scene. See, a certain someone's vehicle goes speeding off a cliff, and it literally explodes in mid-air for no reason. The visual is so ridiculous that both the wife and I burst out laughing, and it may be the single funniest shot in all of Pumpkin. And this is not to mention the fact that the car we see blow up is a totally different model than the one we're shown up close just a few seconds beforehand. Yes, the filmmakers blatantly used footage from another movie in this particular scene. It's CLEARLY supposed to be a joke.

So, if the film is willing to go for something that slapstick at this particular time, why wouldn't it be willing to go for other obvious gags at other times? There's no doubt in my mind that Pumpkin is intended as a comedy. Why, then, is it so shy about it? Why does Pumpkin act like a National Lampoons movie one minute, and an After-School Special the next?!? This one could have been very funny if someone had settled on just what sort of tone it would take, and then stuck with it.

Ugh. I feel like this picture had something special going on, although I'm not sure exactly what it was. It's like there's a kind of weird, subversive genius at play in Pumpkin, just screaming for release and never quite getting it. I was rooting for the movie, but walked away feeling a little seasick. Still, you should check it out. It's definitely...something.

Like I said, if anything, it deserves a redo.

3 out of 5.

b.