The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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Simon Birch
Comedy · Drama · Family · 1998
Simon Birch and Joe Wenteworth are boys who have a reputation for being oddballs. Joe never knew his father, and his mother, Rebecca, is keeping her lips sealed no matter how much he protests. Simon, meanwhile, is an 11-year-old dwarf whose outsize personality belies his small stature. Indeed, he often assails the local reverend with thorny theological questions and joins Joe on his quest to find his biological father.
Movie details
Simon Birch
“Destiny has big plans for little Simon Birch.”
1998 Comedy · Drama · Family 1h 54m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.8 / 10
22.5K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
45 %
Tomatometer
Metacritic
39 / 100
Metascore
TMDB
6.9 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
Simon Birch and Joe Wenteworth are boys who have a reputation for being oddballs. Joe never knew his father, and his mother, Rebecca, is keeping her lips sealed no matter how much he protests. Simon, meanwhile, is an 11-year-old dwarf whose outsize personality belies his small stature. Indeed, he often assails the local reverend with thorny theological questions and joins Joe on his quest to find his biological father.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Simon Birch?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
The Happiest Millionaire
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The Lady in the Van
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Wise Blood
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Dutch
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The Shack
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A grieving man receives a mysterious, personal invitation to meet with God at a place called 'The Shack'.
Miracles from Heaven
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When Christy discovers her 10-year-old daughter Anna has a rare, incurable disease, she becomes a ferocious advocate for her daughter’s healing as she searches for a solution. After Anna has a freak accident and falls three stories, a miracle unfolds in the wake of her dramatic rescue that leaves medical specialists mystified, her family restored and their community inspired.
A Simple Twist of Fate
Family · 1994
When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthrope and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collectible gold coins. Living in the same town is an affluent family with two sons: John and Tanny. Tanny's a wild boy, whom John cannot control, and one night he breaks into McCann's house, and steals the gold and disappears, which nearly confirms McCann's distrust of mankind. But then, a mysterious young woman dies in the snow outside McCann's house, and her small daughter makes her way to McCann's house and into McCann's life and heart.
Housekeeping
Comedy · 1987
In the Pacific Northwest during the 1950s, two young sisters whose mother has abandoned them wind up living with their Aunt Sylvie, whose views of the world and its conventions don't quite live up to most people's expectations.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Mark Steven Johnson
Written by
Mark Steven Johnson
I
Ian Michael Smith
Simon Birch
Joseph Mazzello
Joe Wenteworth
Ashley Judd
Rebecca Wenteworth
Oliver Platt
Ben Goodrich
David Strathairn
Reverend Russell
Dana Ivey
Grandmother Wenteworth
Beatrice Winde
Hilde Grove
Court is in session
Put Simon Birch on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.