Kind of a strange experience watching it again, and now in retrospect I can see why. When I first watched this film, I would've been about 7 or so – even younger than the 13-year-old version of Tom Hanks. And at that time, even he seemed big to me. When he transformed into a man, that was just something unfathomable at the time. But now, watching it as a 34-year-old man, there's something clawing away at me inside about how sad it all is. And maybe not in the way the film intended.
This 1980s idea of materialism, money and power keeps pervading these old films I watched, and now I see how we were kind of indoctrinated in that era to covet those things. I'm not sure whether the film deals with this in a positive way or not, and the moral message of the film seems lost to me now. Is it about growing old? Is it about staying young? Is it about a loss of sexual innocence? (someone pointed out to me while we were watching that it was kind of sick that he has a sexual encounter with an older woman in the film). Experiencing the right things at the right time? Being careful what you wish for?
And that's what makes it tough to watch now, as an older man. What seemed so sad and poignant to me as a child when he looks back at his adult girlfriend wearing that baggy suit, having changed back into a child again, I feel like I see a different kind of sadness in the film now. That I look back on a film I once loved so much, and now just see it as kind of mediocre. 7/10
