A Monkey movie review

Will Ferrell plays an alcoholic who loses his job the same day his wife puts all his stuff out on the front lawn and changes all the locks before she leaves him.  He decides to ride it out and live on his lawn.  While living out there he encounters and befriends a young black kid, a new neighbor, and he reconnects with an old friend from high school.  Towards the end he discovers some not so nice news about his soon to be ex wife and it helps him get back on the right track.

This film is based on a Raymond Carver short story and I found it to be very good and very truthful, not to the story, I haven't read it so I can't comment on how true it was to the source material, what I mean is it felt true, the way Ferrell's character reacted to his dilemma felt true and natural.  It didn't feel forced.   This film is not a comedy, but it has some funny moments.  I found the whole thing to be charmingly melancholy.

The Will Ferrell you get in this film is not the wacky Will Ferrell of the Judd Apatow-ish movies, instead you get a restrained Will Ferrell and that's the perfect one for this film.  His performance in this one is very reminiscent of his turn in Stranger Than Fiction.  The rest of the cast is very good too, I didn't see a false note from any of them.  The story and the performances all rang very true to me.  And I quite liked all of it.

I recommend this one but those of you who hate Will Ferrell will stay away from this one no matter what I say, but you'll be doing yourself a disservice by being so stubborn.