There’s a new romantic comedy coming out on February 21, 2014. (February 21? Really? A new romantic comedy that misses Valentine’s Day by a week?) The good news is that one of the protagonists is barefoot.
The bad news is that she’s an escaped mental patient.
It’s actually a remake of the German movie Barefuss. In the German version the girl, Leila (renamed Daisy for the American version), was confined at home by her mother and then sent to the mental institution when her mother died. After meeting Nick, who’s down-on-his-luck and cleaning toilets at the institution, she escapes and accompanies him to his brother’s wedding. Oh, and of course the rest of his family is very rich.
She goes barefoot throughout the movie.
The American version is pretty similar, though of course they have to Americanize it up. What would an American movie be without a car chase. OK, in this case it’s a recreational camper chase. But the chase results when the institution wants her back.
The humor of the film (romantic comedy, remember?) comes from her just blurting out what she means, being unfamiliar with life, and taking phrases literally. The trailer does not give a hint as to whether her bare feet actually play any part in the movie, aside from labeling her as “quirky” (and maybe mentally deranged?). I suppose they could include some “humor” of her and Nick being thrown out of a grocery store or refused boarding on an airplane. (But I don’t know if they do.)
She does appear (from what I can see in the trailer) to really go barefoot. From the trailer, here she’s meeting Nick’s mother at the mansion.
Yup, barefoot.
Here are the two of them walking through an airport.
This actually gives me hope that she really does stay barefoot.
The trailer also has this shot from near the end inside the entrance to the mental institution.
I don’t know how it ends. (I’ll guess we’ll have to watch the movie when it comes out.) We’re told that she learns about life, and he learns how not to be a total jerk. In the German version, there is a hint at the end that she does get released and they get back together. Who knows in the American version. And will “learning about life” include being forced to wear shoes? Again, I guess we’ll have to stay tuned to find out.
You can see the trailer for the German version here:
And here is the trailer for the soon-to-be-released American version:
Let’s hope it doesn’t redound to strongly reinforcing the public’s already strong suspicion that barefooters belong in mental institutions.
[H/T: Alan]
Hey Bob, you know how I know you’re gay?
You just watched Barefoot — The Movie…
Nah . . . I just watched the trailer—for research purposes.
But I may actually watch the movie when it does come out.
Not my favourite actors, and I’m not into romcoms generally, so I will probably give it a miss, but I’m looking forward to the comments on the internet when it comes out. Eeew, bare feet!
Socks must be worn.
From what I have seen in films nowadays, characters who go 100% barefoot tend to end up in shoes by the end, even if it is only once. This includes Whale Rider. In fact there is even a barefoot character in one of the Narnia books who is in shoes by the end. Unfortunately CS Lewis didn’t seem to know that you can actually walk barefoot in the desert sand.
Unfortunately the only recent film I can think of where the main character is supposed to be barefoot is actually, the Hobbit. Yes, even in the scenes where the foot prosthetics are wobbling like limp jelly.
Although, actually, there is another film with a barefoot lead, but sadly it is the animated film Rapunzel. She does seem to enjoy it though and I don’t think you ever see her in shoes
I have seen the German movie–when it first came out. From the trailer of the American version, I do not have much hope for it capturing the integrity of the original. Mostly Martha, a remake of the German original, Belle Martha, was a utter failure in capturing the tension between the characters, whose lives were dramatically changed by someone’s death in a car accident. The US version was basically a hug-me love story with a tiresome progression of meaningless everyday life events. Looks like that will be the same for this one. In Barfuß, the girl was portrayed–not so much as fully crazy, but–mostly as wired differently from others but still fighting demons, therefore locked away from society for everyone’s good. The character was somewhat reminiscent of Peter Sellers’ naïve character in Being There. Speech came with difficulty for the barefoot girl in Barfuß. Girl in the American remake looks like someone with no speaking problems whatever, who has just been kept home and from society, thus with no worldly knowledge and no real mental problems. Like Disney’s messing with plots of both books and movies to make them all happy-go-lucky affairs, I am afraid this will be a complete rewrite of a decent movie that had practically nothing to do with barefooting as it concerns us.
It has been almost 10 years, but my recollection of the original was that she ended up in shoes as a sign that she was ‘making progress’ in fighting off the demons.
It turns out that Barfuss is on youtube (probably not for long).
“she ended up in shoes as a sign that she was ‘making progress’ in fighting off the demons.”
Unfortunately, conformity as a sign of maturity and growth is a common trope. It’s a big reason why male characters with long hair tend to either turn evil or get it cut off (because long hair on men is not standard). Hence, in a film about a barefoot anything formula dictates that they show conformity as growth’. If this were set a hundered years ago it would probably be swapping trousers for a corset.
This is also the reason that voldemort was depicted as being barefoot and deformed in Harry potter (despite this not being in the books), and why villains are so often disabled or disfigured.
The other barefoot character in the Harry Potter movies? The (slightly looney) Luna Lovegood.