Movie review: Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Posted on 11 December, 2014

For Alexander Cooper, everyday is a bad day but his family thinks he’s being silly because they never have a bad day. On the day before his 12th birthday party, he learns that another boy is having a party of his own and everyone is going to it. So at midnight of he wishes that his whole family can have a bad day.” imdb

I don’t really like it when reviewers or interviewers use valuable article space to tell you about themselves rather than the subject – but I afraid I will need to this time.

This is the film that has turned me into that person.

The weird, old person sitting alone watching a film (clearly not meant for them) and laughing way too loudly, relaxed in their seat, oblivious to those around them. You know the one – that person families steer away from as they leave the cinema and the one other adults look at sympathetically. Sigh.

Darn it Judith Viorst, why did you have to write such a funny and identifiable book? And why did it have to be made into such an enjoyable movie?

Still, my intentions were good—HerCanberra has lots of family focussed readers and I thought you might like some comments on the family movies being released this summer…

So yes, I enjoyed it.

Australian actor Ed Oxenbould, as Alexander, is sweet, awkward and unaffected. A little bland perhaps but I think that will help the target audience identify with him. They will easily imagine themselves in his shoes. Although he comes from an extensive family of actors he had taken roles in some TV work before being thrown into an American feature (!) and he also stars in another eagerly anticipated summer film – Paper Planes. So really, just your average kid then.

Jennifer Garner makes a good effort as his mum and her scenes with Dick Van Dyck are fun but the main reason I saw this film was Steve Carell. I was not disappointed with his turn as Alexander’s dad and I was quite surprised with the other actors making up the Cooper family. An ordinary (in the very best sense of the word)  looking sister and a brother who is not a 45 year old in a baseball cap. This family actually felt like a family—a little larger than life—but frankly… normal. Mum and dad are even depicted as (gulp) reasonably intelligent.

The director, Miguel Arteta, is a journeyman TV director but he has done well with this feature film. There are no bells and whistles, no tricks or moments of great art BUT he has managed to create a version of an ordinary kid’s day that is not reliant on celluloid stereotypes or heavy-handed messages.

Of course he did have much loved and often interpreted (play, TV movie) material of good quality to work with.

There is a balance in this film that is not often seen – comedy without stick, emotions without pathos, a happy ending without veering tooooo far from reality. The whole movie has an unaffected look and feel that makes it accessible.

I could readily identify with the misadventures of this family, particularly the parents, and I am many, many years away from being Alexander’s age yet his dreams and doubts almost became my own as I enjoyed his day.