Goats
2012 · Directed by Christopher Neil
Original language: English
- comedy
The story
Having a self-absorbed New Age mother and an estranged father has meant 15-year-old Ellis Whitman has grown up relying on an unconventional guardian: a goat-trekking, marijuana-growing sage called 'Goat Man'. When Ellis decides to leave the alternative ways of his desert homestead for a stuffy East Coast prep school, major changes are in store.
What it’s like
Sun-bleached and loose, with wide desert vistas of scrub, dusty roads and open sky giving way to the crisp, paneled hush of an East Coast campus. The camera tends to sit back and let scenes breathe, and the mood is easygoing and quirky rather than frantic, with a warm, wry score that never pushes too hard. It suits a lazy weekend afternoon, a relaxed evening with a glass of something cold, or a light comfort watch when you want a few laughs without strain. The tone is gently comic with a bittersweet undertow about belonging and family, and the story's emotional arc follows a restless teenager slowly learning what he owes to the odd, loving people who raised him and what he wants for himself. Intensity is low: there is some crude teen humor, drug use and drinking played for laughs, and some awkward sexual talk, but no real violence or gore and nothing frightening. It is for viewers who enjoy offbeat, character-driven comedy about outsiders, unconventional families and coming of age.
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