Thanks for the memories!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Thinking about DVDs to get for my dad for Christmas viewing,I remembered enjoying the TV series adaptation of Judy Blume's "Fudge" books with him. Sadly failing to find the series,I found out that a film had been made based on a Blume book,which led to me looking into the eye of the tiger.The plot:Trying to make sense of the chaos after her husband is killed in a hold-up, Gwen Wexler takes her son Jason and daughter Davey to Los Alamos, New Mexico.Before the murder of her dad Davey had some stability,thanks to loyal friends,an active social scene at high school and a loving family. Uncomfortable with the attempts her mother is making to find a new route in her life,Davey finds herself withdrawing from the outside world, until she crosses paths with a Native‐ American climber called Wolf,who brings the fire into Davey's "tiger eyes" back to life.View on the film:Slapped with a terrible "family viewing" sticker on the DVD sleeve,the screenplay by Judy and her son Lawrence Blume (which for good timing is partly set at Christmas!) unexpectedly features some very dark moments sprung from the unsolved murder of Davey's dad,to the arguments between Davey and Gwen ringing with pent-up emotion. Climbing the mountains of Davey's pain with Wolf,the Blume's elegantly express Davey's struggle to embrace herself and to find a new optimism which treats the pain respectfully.Produced in 23 days,director Lawrence Blume & cinematographer Seamus Tierney cover the title in a "magic hour" gloss that stylishly casts the light across the screen that has gone from Davey's life.Made when he was dying from cancer, Russell Means gives a great performance with gravitas as Willie Ortiz,whose son "Wolf" is played by Means real son Tatanka,who gives Wolf's relationship with his dad and Davey a touching thoughtfulness. Displaying Davey's raw feelings by wearing no makeup, Willa Holland untangles all of Davey's painful emotions,with Holland's brittle exchanges with a wonderful Amy Jo Johnson as Gwen making the sparks fly,as light comes back into the tiger eyes.

Sadly, this film is proof that good books can't be always translated into good films.To me, this film is nothing like the book. There is no mood set, the cast is totally wrong---the parents look like they could be the brother/sister of Davey, not parents. All poignant dialogue and scenes from the book are removed. There is no building of scenes, and they just did not translate grief except for a few brief moments. They moved and shifted characters and didn't have enough flash back sequences to unfold the mystery of Davey's grief, like in the book.Sadly, I was thoroughly disappointed all around. The fact they changed the ending as well---nothing was done right--they showed no growth of Davey as we see in the book.There are brief moments where you can really feel the grief, but sadly, with no build up, or even getting to know Davey, it falls too short.

Tiger Eyes, a young adult book written by Judy Blume in 1981 and the first of her movies to be brought to the big screen, is about a young girl trying to cope with the murder of her father. Her son, Lawrence Blume wrote the screen play and directed the film. Willia Holland stars as Davey and Tatanka Means stars as Wolf, the young man who who helps Davey find strength from loss.Despite the Boston International Film Festival playing an unfinished version of the film that lacked surround sound and the rich deep and moody color the directer intended, the movie was lushly filmed and used the landscape surrounding Los Almos New Mexico as a silent-yet-powerful character in the film.What is rendered on the screen is a spare yet moving meditation on the solitude of grief and the redemptive power of connection. The film holds a few masterful moments that telegraph to our hearts and minds the experience of grief. Close to the beginning of the movie we are presented with a character's wish to rise up in a hot air balloon and never come down. Shortly thereafter Davey is alone, cradled by a New Mexico canyon, and calls out for her now dead father. The aloneness an isolation of death and loss are hauntingly personified in these two scenes.The separation and isolation build in the movie and come to a sharp point before pivoting in a Native American ceremony with Wolf (Tatanka Means) and his father Willie Ortiz (Russell Means, Tatanka's real-life father). The ceremony teaches us that no one is left alone in this universe and that it is vital that we are not alone as we are social beings. Wolf's father says "if a person feels disconnected, he or she might fail." The movie starts to unwind itself and carry us to the ending as relationships move from contraction to expansion toward an emotionally satisfying ending. No one fails.Blume's books are dense. She packs in many different facets of the young adult experience. The movie adaptation of Tiger Eyes is no different. In 92 minutes we are exposed to death, grief, teen drinking, teen relationships and dating, rebellion, angst, and more. I found myself wishing for a simpler more spare story line. The other issues presented in the movie, while important and well done, distracted me from the elegant beauty of relationships lost and found.I think, perhaps, my wish of a more spare movie reflects my more adult tastes. I got to thinking about how young adults interact with media-- short bits of information. I wonder if that was Lawrence Blume's intention of the movie--to present short bits of information to a young adult audience in their own language. If that's the case, it was pure genius.more: http://irreverentpsychologist.blogspot.com/2012/04/relationships- lost-and-found-tiger-eyes.html

I saw the film at its premiere at the Sonoma International Film Festival, and I thought it was wonderful. Willa Holland's performance was both subtle and powerful, showing an incredible amount of pent-up anger, frustration, and sadness that truly moved me. I have never read the book (or any Judy Blume novel,) so I was surprised by the film's depth and gentle handling of a very tough subject (the loss of a parent.) The film isn't your typical tale of teen angst and longings - it's a dark and subtle character drama. The film is also incredibly well-shot (mild spoiler - my personal favorite was during a scene where the mother is singing Christmas carols with her new friends, where Davey is watching from the hallway, framed by party guests in this very contrasted light that just reinforces her character's intensity in that moment.)All-in-all I thoroughly enjoyed the film, and I hope that it finds a distributor who not only cares enough to give the film a good release, but also doesn't screw up the marketing by making the film out to be something it's not.