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As inconsequential as it is, Jeremiah Chechik’s Benny & Joon remains a charming look at one young couple’s handling of love and separation anxiety. With the opening music provided by the Scottish duo known as The Proclaimers, the mood and spirit of the film definitely belongs to another decade. The 90s were an interesting time for young people and that angst – as bubbly as the movie presents it at times – is fully realized by the picture. Yet, in spite of this 90s encampment, Benny & Joon remains a breezy romantic comedy for these modern times.
Starring Aidan Quinn, Julianne Moore, Mary Stuart Masterson, and Johnny Depp, this four-character driven affair balances itself with a stable look at eccentricity. Maintaining its ‘from a watcher’s point of view sort of thing’, the movie documents the events of two young people falling newly into love against the wiser tides of age and experience. Benny (Quinn) is struggling to make ends meet as he cares for his schizophrenic sister Joon (Masterson) and the last thing he needs is for Sam (Depp) – who feels he is Buster Keaton reborn – to fall in love with her.
Of course, that’s what happens – even as Benny finds himself tripped up by a waitress named Ruthie (Moore). Each and every entanglement spirals out of control and makes for a complicated and untidy mess and - from Benny’s point of view – what was at once familiar and comfortable is now laid to waste by Sam’s quiet presence and Ruthie’s constant baiting. The script is frothy and, while it is true that the performances being the heaviness to the picture, there is seldom a foul note as written by Barry Berman.
The absurd moments this film relishes in – Joon directing traffic with a paddle and, later, making grilled cheese sandwiches on the ironing board with an iron – are part of its charm. Benny & Joon is all about awkwardness and it explores this note in whimsical and surprising manners. Sam, ever the quiet one, fancies himself to be caught in the silent comedy and Depp channels Keaton and Charlie Chaplin like a pro. His replication of the dinner roll dance routine (first captured on film by Fatty Arbuckle and not Chaplin) is a memorable scene of pure pantomime.
Yet, Depp’s performance isn’t the only highlight. The gentleness of Quinn in his scenes alongside Masterson is a complete winner; he means her no harm in spite of their differences and it is understood that everything is done with her best intentions at his core. It’s an honest and complicated performance – as is Masterson’s who nails her performance with delicate grace as the misunderstood female in love with the odd man out.
With supporting roles that feature performances by Oliver Platt, William H. Macy, and CCH Pounder, Benny & Joon achieves its misfit poignancy without tipping the boat into the too-sweet-to-taste rivers of honey that surround it. Predictable but never annoying, Chechik’s film provides a very sane look at the joys of never fitting in.
MPAA Rating: PG
