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Plot Summary![]() With more money than they could ever possibly need, Ron and Debbie Hall have everything they could ever want … except for a loving marriage. When Ron’s unfaithfulness is brought to light, Debbie invites him to stay—as long as he remains truthful and does what she asks of him. But when her request includes serving the homeless at an inner-city rescue mission, Ron would prefer to write a large check instead. Guided by her faith and spurred on by the dream of a homeless man she senses will change their city, Debbie befriends a disenfranchised man named Denver. More surprisingly, so does Ron. Despite vast differences, their lives begin to intersect and they all are changed forever. (from SameKindofDifferentAsMe.com) |
Film Review
Same Kind of Different as Me follows the true story of an art dealer named Ron Hall and his experiences with serving the homeless. But the story is filled with gritty examples of the harsh realities of life. This particular story begins with his wife, Debbie, learning of his infidelity. They had grown apart, which led to his own wandering, but it put the couple in a position to decide whether or not they wanted to fight for their marriage or go their separate ways. Shortly after they fight over the revelation of Ron’s adulterous ways, Debbie has a vivid dream about a mysterious black man that leaves her puzzled. Soon after this, she drags Ron reluctantly to a soup kitchen to make him help serve the homeless (as part of his reparations for his mistake), when suddenly the man from her dream bursts through the door wielding a baseball bat and violently makes a scene. It’s then that she realizes this homeless man, nicknamed “Suicide,” was in fact the man in her dream. What unfolds is a unique culture clash as Ron and Debbie go out of their way to get to know this man — whose real name is Denver — and it changes their lives forever.
It’s a tricky thing translating a book into a feature film. It was a wise choice to make the film more so about Hall recalling the story in order to write the book, and I enjoyed seeing those intermittent sequences. The pacing could be a problem for some though, with some slower sequences or drawn-out ones, where it almost edges a little on awkwardness. However, it lends a sense of intimacy to the story, too, allowing us to settle in and get to know these people, who are so wonderfully portrayed by Kinnear, Zellwegger and Hounsou. However, some of the peripheral characters feel a bit like caricatures, especially the two Hall children — who feel like set dressing more than real people. Their son, who appears in a few scenes, doesn’t even have a line in the film. And in one key scene, it feels really odd that he just sits there quietly and doesn’t say a word as his mother talks to him. But, thankfully, the outstanding core performances make up for any weak spots along the way.
Same Kind of Different as Me isn’t your typical cinematic experience. Aside from being a slower form of storytelling than the average popcorn-munching moviegoer today may be accustomed to, it’s a deep and rich story about humanity, social status, faith, love, forgiveness, and sacrifice. It’s a beautiful story that’ll stick with the viewer long after the credits finish rolling, and something truly inspirational that begs the viewer to get up out of their seat and love someone outside the confines of their own comfort zone. – John DiBiase (reviewed: 8/10/17)
Blu-Ray Special Features Review Same Kind of Different as Me is available in a Blu-Ray/Digtial combo pack, on DVD, and separately through the usual digital movie providers. The regular Blu-Ray disc and iTunes Extras have some pretty nice extras, including a wealth of deleted scenes and a feature-length commentary by director Michael Carney, writer Ron Hall and writer Alexander Foard.Love is Patient, Love is Kind – The Making of Same Kind of Different as Me (26:52) – This is a great featurette about how director Michael Carney and author Ron Hall connected to do the movie. It also talks about casting–and how they were able to get their first-choices for a lot of the actors, the filming process, the real people the characters are based on, and filming in Mississippi. We also get some great interview footage of the actors talking about the people and characters they play. (And it doesn’t hurt that they included a photo of me alongside other media and Renee Zellwegger from our 2014 set visit! 🙂 ) Filming in Mississippi (10:33) – This shorter featurette focuses solely on filming on-location in Mississippi, renovating a soup kitchen (and leaving it working for the community to use after filming was done!), miracles that happened during the filmmaking process, and cleaning up rundown places they had filmed in to leave them in better shape after they were finished with the production. Deleted and Extended Scenes (28:27) – There are a staggering 24 deleted or extended scenes, with optional commentary, adding up to almost a half hour of extra footage. Most of these were little moments here and there, but a lot of the later scenes add detail (often painfully) to Debbie’s battle with her terminal illness. Here are some details on each scene: The first one is a brief moment where Ron’s daughter complains about having to attend his art gala. Next is an awkward moment at breakfast of Debbie with the kids. Her son asks where Ron is but no one says anything (According to the commentary, it takes place after Ron and Debbie’s fight; the kids weren’t told of their father’s affair until after Debbie passed). There’s an extended version of Debbie’s dream where she doesn’t just see Denver, but sees lots of people walking in a field. There are then a couple scenes where Ron is at his artist friend’s home and is working on his book. Those are followed by a short scene where Ron and Debbie drop off a box of old records at the soup kitchen and then they spot Denver walking in the street (*Incidentally, this was the scene I saw being filmed when I visited the set, so I’m excited to see it included here). There’s an additional scene when Ron takes Denver to a fancy art gallery and then takes a phone call, leaving Denver alone. He’s then approached by security, but Ron returns in time to intervene. It’s actually a wonderful moment; I wish they’d left it in (Djimon is fantastic in it, too). It’s followed by a tiny additional moment added to Denver’s flashback. Next we see Debbie in soup kitchen courtyard where Clara stops by after she’s cleaned herself up. Clara’s pimp then visits and starts roughing her up. Denver intervenes and throws him out. The next scene follows it where we see the pimp and one of his girls. Denver then walks up and beats the guy up with his baseball bat and tells him to stay away. It’s pretty rough, so I can understand why they cut these two scenes out. Next is an extended scene where Debbie tries to find Denver in a homeless section of the woods. Then there’s a short snippet of Denver going outside Ron’s house to sleep in the bushes. Next is a series of scenes centered around Debbie’s illness. First, Denver is seen sitting and thinking before visiting Debbie at the hospital and kneeling to pray for her. Then we see Ron trying to teach Denver how to drive. The following scene is a moment where Ron and Debbie meet with a doctor and she asks him if he believes in God. There’s then a short moment where Debbie and Ron are just sitting in her hospital room doing a crossword puzzle together, and then the next scene shows Debbie in the hospital bed, asking the doctor when she can eat (and her being told she can never eat again because of her illness). The following scene shows Denver picking them up at the hospital, then there’s a really heavy scene where Debbie is lying in bed wheezing and Ron is sitting at the foot of her bed with their daughter. In the 20th scene, Ron holds her while she’s wheezing in bed and begs her to let go. The following scene takes place much later while he’s working on his book and he sees a vision of Debbie walking in the woods nearby. The last three scenes are really short little moments: Ron walking by a painting in progress that shows him sitting outside where he was writing his book, then him coming home to his children, and finally Ron unrolling a painting to find it’s the one of him, but now Denver was added to the painting. – John DiBiase, (reviewed: 2/19/18)
Parental Guide: Brief Summary of Content
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