Barefoot (2014)

Barefoot (2014) - Jay (Scott Speedman, Underworld) is the black sheep of a well-to-do New Orleans family, gambling, boozing, fighting, and sleeping his way across Los Angeles.  He's mopping floors in a mental hospital as a condition of his parole.  Desperate for money to repay debts to some seriously criminal people, he decides to go home for his little brother's wedding to hit up the family.  When Daisy (Evan Rachael Wood, Across the Universe), who's lived her entire life as a shut-in with her mother follows him out of the institution, he decides to pass her off as his girlfriend.

Despite the potential for endlessly offbeat humor, this movie was actually
more traditional than one would expect.  Instead of being a crazy movie about quirky people, it was a semi-serious movie in which there was one (or a few if you count the other patients) quirky individual.

Since Daisy showed up at his parents' estate in clothes borrowed from the only women Jay knows, strippers, there is a requisite "makeover moment" when Daisy descends a staircase looking radiant.  The fact that she's not used to shoes and trips the instant she takes her first step is completely expected, but still charming.  From this point on, Daisy looks like a living, breathing Disney character, complete with wide-eyed breathless wonder at the world around her.

This wasn't a movie where one laughs out loud, but there were ten moments where I chuckled quite loudly, all at Daisy of course, for her moments like "I already did" on the plane, and the breakfast made of sandwiches, tiny powdered donuts, and Twizzlers.  I dropped the knitting needles twice for emotional sequences, but there wasn't an eyeroll in the whole thing.

I did think that the ending was a bit easy, considering.  With mild spoilers ahead, I will say that if the doctor made things easier for them because of contrition over his error, that wasn't made very clear.  The father's check at the end was a bit odd too, for as far as we the audience knew, he still thought it was for a buisiness investment.  When did he find out it was for a loan shark?

Otherwise this is a completely charming and cute romantic comedy.  It's PG-13, probably for some of the adult situations at the beginning, and a bit of violence towards the end.  I'd say it's a good movie to knit to, because not a lot of the humor is visual, but then you'd miss some of the landscapes on the cross-country trip in the recreational vehicle.

I give this a four and a half out of five.  If that ending had just been a little less pat, I would have given it a five.