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Been meaning to see this movie for a while; I'd heard a lot of good things. And yeah, I liked it a lot. It was... subtle. I liked that it was authentic Hawai‘i, without being in your face about it. The shirts, the paintings, the carved wooden bowls, the streets and trees and neighborhoods, the authentic locations, the quiet chirp of a gecko. I liked that we got to see glimpses of the neighbor islands. I loved the soundtrack of Hawaiian slack key standards: elegant, understated, beautiful. I recommend seeing it, if you haven't.
That it was a story about affluent white people got my hackles up a bit, because it offers such a distorted view of what Hawai‘i is like to most of the people who live here. I did really like that the movie addresses this head-on; I loved that speech he made to Cousin Hugh at the King family meeting.
I had sort of strangely-colored lenses on while watching, because my boss Jackie said that the fictional King family makes her think of the way I talk about my family (large kama‘aina haole family, several generations born in the Islands, owns property). So I couldn't help doing the compare-and-contrast thing. The Kings are a lot richer than the Gills, certainly, and they've been in the islands a lot longer... they're somewhere between my family and the Campbells, and a lot closer to the Campbells at that. Like, they're a less-Hawaiian, less-famous, less-royal, less-influential version of the Campbells. Or maybe they're a bit like a whiter version of the Parkers. (Heck, they're a hell of a lot whiter than the Gills, at least if you take my generation into account. XD) Because it's an older family, it's a much bigger family, and they don't seem quite as close.
It was other parts of the movie that I found myself identifying with, parts relating to Matt and his immediate family. ( Cut conceals minor movie spoilers but mostly me waxing emotional about family, those departed and those that don't yet and may never exist. )
That it was a story about affluent white people got my hackles up a bit, because it offers such a distorted view of what Hawai‘i is like to most of the people who live here. I did really like that the movie addresses this head-on; I loved that speech he made to Cousin Hugh at the King family meeting.
I had sort of strangely-colored lenses on while watching, because my boss Jackie said that the fictional King family makes her think of the way I talk about my family (large kama‘aina haole family, several generations born in the Islands, owns property). So I couldn't help doing the compare-and-contrast thing. The Kings are a lot richer than the Gills, certainly, and they've been in the islands a lot longer... they're somewhere between my family and the Campbells, and a lot closer to the Campbells at that. Like, they're a less-Hawaiian, less-famous, less-royal, less-influential version of the Campbells. Or maybe they're a bit like a whiter version of the Parkers. (Heck, they're a hell of a lot whiter than the Gills, at least if you take my generation into account. XD) Because it's an older family, it's a much bigger family, and they don't seem quite as close.
It was other parts of the movie that I found myself identifying with, parts relating to Matt and his immediate family. ( Cut conceals minor movie spoilers but mostly me waxing emotional about family, those departed and those that don't yet and may never exist. )
