Figure 1.--Joseph Cross here is seen in his rolw as Joshua Beal wearing his blue school blazer.
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Figure 1.--Joseph Cross here is seen in his rolw as Joshua Beal wearing his blue school blazer. |
A reader reports lovely American drama/comedy called "Wide Awake". It is a nice family film based around an upperclass Catholic American family, the Beals. Joshua Beal (Joseph Cross) with shock of blond hair . He is nearly 9 or 10 years old and is in year 5 at very exclusive Catholic preparatory school with tight rules and a very strict uniform code too. The nuns are very strict. Joshua discovers girls, deals with bullys and pranksters, endures the death of grandad, and has an attitudal change. He also wrestles with the issue of is there a God?.
"Wide Awake" is probably most notable as the first movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan who directed "The Sixth Sense." This is not a well-known film. My recollection is that when "Wide Awake" was released in 1998 (in America) that it was barely promoted and only opened in a few theaters. I'm not sure why. It disappeared from theaters quickly. My guess that it probably did well on video after Shyamalan's better known "The Sixth Sense" came out.
Joseph Cross does a nice job of playing Joshua Beal. He also had large parts in "Desperate Measures" and "Jack Frost," which came out the same year as "Wide Awake." Michael Craig Bigwood plays a minor role in the film, but he has a big job – he plays God! The stuntman or the practical joker was wonderfully played by Timothy Reifsnyder. Rosie O'Donnell is wonderful as a trendy friendly but consistant nun and his head teacher. Cameron Mannheim also appears as a nun too but only fleetingly. Robert Loggis pops up as his dying but very Catholic grandfather and is wonderfully cast. Denis Leary and Dana Delany also star.
The actual school is a lovely building too with big halls. An Australian reader writes, "The classroom not to simular to one I spent a year in and this film brought back my boyhood memories of schoollife in the Catholic way of life. The blue blazer is a bit like
my old one except those brass stud buttons. But the depiction of boys and their life in school is spot on."
A reader reports lovely American drama/comedy called "Wide Awake". It is a nice family film based around an upperclass Catholic American family, the Beals. Joshua Beal (Joseph Cross) with shock of blond hair . He is nearly 9 or 10 years old and is in year 5 at very exclusive Catholic preparatory school with tight rules and a very strict uniform code too. The nuns are very strict. Joshua discovers girls, deals with bullys and pranksters, endures the death of grandad, and has an attitudal change. He wrestles with the issue of is there a God?. That actually is the main theme of the story.
Throughout the movie the depressed main character asks various people about
God. The death of the main character's grandfather is recalled throughout
the movie. A reader writes, "I had a tear or too when the little guy finds out that grand dad has bone cancer."
Figure 2.--Michael Craig Bigwood plays a minor role in the film, but he has a big job – he plays God! |
The school uniform consists of a blue blazer with a crest and long grey trousers for the older boys. The younger boys wer khaki short pants with blue kneesocks. There are white shirts and the school tie and sweaters with colored trim. As the film has a modern American setting there are no peaked caps. The khaki shorts vary from boy to boy. Some are a tad baggy, but not extreme.
A South African reader comments, "I read your review of the movie 'Wide Awake' with interest. It was an excellent film that went completely un-noticed".
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