[Movie Monday] Annie (2014)

Movie: Annie (2014)

Genre: Drama/Comedy/Music

Welcome to another Movie Monday!

Today’s first spotlight goes to Annie! And I am not talking about the original orphaned girl Annie.

Remember the very first movie of her that was made back in 1982? She was the red headed girl that no one wanted and singing about how the “sun will come out tomorrow” and that “you can bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, there’ll be sun”?

Her story has been remade and came out on Christmas of 2014. But the story has taken a whole new meaning by making the story more relatable to today’s time with smartphones and technologies. To take it a step further, to say that there are even black kids that are orphans out there in the world, in the more modernized version of Annie, the orphaned Annie is not the white skinned, red head with freckles orphaned Annie. Instead, she’s an African-American girl who can’t read or write – Only knows how to sign her name since, how she sees it, that’s all you really need to know in order to survive out in the world by end of the day. And for written assignments, she has always had a way to getting away with not having to actually hand in the written portion, because all that she does is, as she states in the beginning of the movie when it’s her turn to present on Franklin Roosevelt, a “performance piece”.

Annie is placed in a foster system, and the home that she’s been placed in, she lives with four other foster girls. And Annie, for one, believes that they all have a family out in the world somewhere. Whether they be far away or even nearby, Annie has hopes that they will all get adopted if not for finding their birthparents to return back to. For the orphaned Annie, what keeps her going from believing that she will be reunited with her parents is a half of a locket that’s been around her neck since she had been found abandoned at a restaurant that she returns to every Friday after school and a note that has been left with her, giving the information of her name and stating that her parents will be coming back for her “very soon”. But how soon can “very soon” really be?

And there’s a man, Will Stacks, who owns his own cellphone company that is running for mayor. Problem for Mr. Stacks is that he’s not really a people person, and for everyone that he shakes hands with, he feels the need to kill the germs as quick as possible. For him, having to even be close to other people and eating “poor people” food is unacceptable. He is even at the point where he overworks himself, and his definition of fun is doing work and nothing but work.

What both Annie and Mr. Stacks fails to realize is that both of their lives are about to change when they run into each other in the streets by accident, and Annie nearly gets run over by a truck until Mr. Stacks, reacting quickly, saves Annie. Someone caught the scene on their camera and uploaded it up onto the YouTube for the world to see, which instantly gets Mr. Stacks’ rating up from the voters. Mr. Stacks is recommended to follow up with Annie by inviting her to lunch and checking to see how she is doing. It is also through that very recommended lunch that Annie states how stupid it sounds that the only way for someone to get elected mayor is by doing something like having to save a kid’s life or by having to follow up to see how they are doing. And when she plainly states that her moving in with him can get him to go all the way as the president of the country, it is recommended to Mr. Stacks by one of his employees that he takes that very step – Taking Annie in under his care as his foster child.

The relationship that blooms between the two characters isn’t something that’s easily seen in everyday life, but it’s a beautiful one to see even on the screens. And whether Annie finds her parents in this modernized version of Annie or not is for you to find out if you have not gotten around to watching the movie yet.