Directed by Ray Giarratana
Written by Ray Giarratana, based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo
Starring Christian Convery, Madalen Mills, Queen Latifah, and Dennis Quaid
MPAA Rating PG
Runtime: 1 hour, 42 Minutes
In theaters January 21 and available digitally & on demand February 8

by Billy Russell, Staff Writer

Rob Horton (played by Christian Convery) is new to school, and an easy target for bullies, both in adult and children form. His mom has recently died, leaving his dad to raise him alone. Rob’s dad is a decent man going through a tough time of his own. The two of them live out of a little motel on the main stretch of road in a small Florida town.

Behind the motel is a patch of land owned by Mr. Beauchamp (Dennis Quaid, having the time of his life playing a snarling villain), who also owns the motel. Rob goes for a walk before school one day into the overgrown wilderness and comes across a cage containing a real, live, man-eating tiger. Also new to school is Sistine (Madalen Mills), who is just as easy a target as Rob. They, naturally, hit it off. Rob is struggling because of an internal sadness he keeps locked up. Madalen is angry. She’s angry at everyone. At everything. While Rob runs from bullies, Sistine fights back. Sometimes she looks for the fight to start.

Rob shows her the tiger in its little cage and the two go through a crisis of faith– what’s the right thing to do? Is it right to keep an animal like that locked up in a cage? Is it up to them to save it?

I’m a sucker for family-friendly entertainment that asks difficult questions and gives messy answers. Life is a difficult, nuanced thing, and there’s rarely going to be a good, clean way to do something. Rarely are there black and white villains versus good guys. A lot of the time, it’s a lot more than that. Everyone wants to be the good guy. Sometimes everyone is the good guy. Sometimes no one is. And I think a movie like The Tiger Rising understands that. And it understands how it shapes your entire life when you realize that.

The Tiger Rising is at its best in its quieter moments. Queen Latifah plays the hotel’s cleaning lady, Willie May. She plays one of those characters who espouses wisdom in easy-to-digest, bite-sized chunks that everyone can understand and agree on. It’s one of those thankless roles that requires someone with the natural charm and charisma of Queen Latifah to pull it off. She does, and her scenes are often the best.

There are also moments between Rob and Beauchamp, with Dennis Quaid really chewing the scenery as a dumbass good ol’ boy who keeps a wild tiger in a cage behind some rundown Florida motel. “That’s how men do business: in tigers,” he grins. To him, it’s a toy. To everyone else, it’s a tragedy on display, a failure of everything wrong in the world, come together at once.

I thought Sam Trammell did a good job, too, as Rob’s father, who can be needlessly tough, for no other reason than, “This is how to raise children,” then unexpectedly warm and loving. He doesn’t have all the answers, but he’s trying very hard to do the right thing, given his circumstances.

The Tiger Rising is less effective in its flashbacks. They don’t feel genuine. Maybe that’s the point, that what Rob is remembering is an idealized version of his mother, bathed in golden light, but it also slows down the story. I rolled my eyes a bit at some of the stuff with the bullies, that just didn’t feel real. Bullying is a sinister thing, and it just comes off as dopey here. I couldn’t imagine kids as smart as Rob and Sistine actually feeling fear from these goofball idiots.

So many movies, especially young adult or family-friendly movies, that are about someone who is an artist, will have the art literally come to life. Rob will draw a tiger, which will animate itself, leap around the pages, and Rob will stare at it, mouth ajar, wide-eyed with wonder. I get what the movie is saying, and conveying, but there’s no way to do this now without it being cheesy as all get-out.

For the movie’s few missteps, and plot threads that go nowhere (the art teacher subplot begins and ends just as abruptly), it successfully says what it wants to say about the trials and tribulations of growing up. Pre-teen angst is some of the most bizarre, painful times to go through, and I think the movie successfully, and earnestly, captures that. It’s just that it doesn’t pull any punches with its ending. The very ending, I believe, will draw some tears, and it’s an earned moment. It’s hopeful, it’s endearing, it’s heartbreaking and… it’s messy. Who was right? Who was wrong? Was anyone right? Does it even matter?