Aidan Quinn is a weird character, he acts well enough in the situations where he rarely needs to be serious and acts weird and boring where the situation is troublesome. The story is very good, but the direction faltered somewhere in the middle and I lost interest in the dialogues. Dialogues is an element which makes up a lot for such movies and they were irrelevant and messy.
On the other side, Johnny Depp is an acting masterclass. He knows how to deliver words, punctuations and breaks between the words. Where the presence of Depp always shines, the presence of other two makes the screen dull, because most of the dialogues are not really like that how mentally ill people would behave. It is understandable that as the title says, Benjamin and Joon are the protagonists, then why the movie's title introduced Depp as the main character? Was it because Depp was already a popular actor back then? Still it doesn't suffice the purpose. Moreover, the chemistry of Quinn and Juliann Moore just slows down the screenplay. There should have been something strong that connects them well with the story.
There are also many scenes which are filled with music or songs in the presence of Benny and Joon and it didn't really help the screen get closer to me. A crisp writing for the mentally challenged people could have been good. Something more serious and exciting like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest might have made the story brilliant.
On the other side, Johnny Depp is an acting masterclass. He knows how to deliver words, punctuations and breaks between the words. Where the presence of Depp always shines, the presence of other two makes the screen dull, because most of the dialogues are not really like that how mentally ill people would behave. It is understandable that as the title says, Benjamin and Joon are the protagonists, then why the movie's title introduced Depp as the main character? Was it because Depp was already a popular actor back then? Still it doesn't suffice the purpose. Moreover, the chemistry of Quinn and Juliann Moore just slows down the screenplay. There should have been something strong that connects them well with the story.
There are also many scenes which are filled with music or songs in the presence of Benny and Joon and it didn't really help the screen get closer to me. A crisp writing for the mentally challenged people could have been good. Something more serious and exciting like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest might have made the story brilliant.