The Secret: Dare to Dream — Rather overstuffed

The Secret: Dare to Dream (2020) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.14.20

I’m always wary of films that open in the celestial heavens, somewhere above Earth, and slowly swoop down through clouds to finally hover above the intended setting; it’s invariably a cue that the filmmakers want us to think what follows will be Significant.

Even for somebody (apparently) accustomed to doing good deeds for total strangers,
Bray's (Josh Lucas) ongoing willingness to help Miranda (Katie Holmes) begins to feel
a bit strange ... as if he has some ulterior motive. (Surprise: He does.)

Instead, what we usually get is cloying, affected and ponderously melodramatic: guaranteed to induce skeptical raised eyebrows and long-suffering sighs.

Director Andy Tennant’s handling of The Secret: Dare to Dream — available via Apple TV and other streaming platforms — skirts the ragged edge of such syrupy twaddle; there’s a definitely sense that we’ve been dumped into an excessively mawkish Nicholas Sparks novel. Happily, this film is saved by warmly earnest performances from Katie Holmes and Josh Lucas … even if the latter gets stuck with some wincingly corny dialogue.

Widowed single mother Miranda Wells (Holmes) works as a manager/food buyer for a family-friendly New Orleans restaurant run by Tucker (Jerry O’Connell), who clearly loves her. Alas, Miranda’s competence on the job isn’t matched by similar care given to her personal life, which is in shambles. She’s short of cash and forever late with bills; she dropped her dental insurance and now can’t afford to get a necessary root canal; and the roof leaks in her crumbling home, also badly in need of countless other minor repairs.

She endures this with the resignation of one who, to quote Marilyn Monroe, always winds up with the fuzzy end of the lollypop. Miranda is one of those people who, if she didn’t have bad luck, would have no luck at all.

She has three doting children, who nonetheless are a bit of a handful. Adolescent Greg (Aidan Pierce Brennan) shares his late father’s fascination with building gadgets; young Bess (Chloe Lee) really, really, really wants a pony. Teenage Missy (Sarah Hoffmeister) pouts constantly, knowing that her upcoming 16th birthday party will be ruined by a more popular girl hosting a party on the same day.

Enter amiable Bray Johnson (Lucas) who drives into town on a mission: to deliver the contents of a large manila envelope to Miranda, a woman he’s never met. Fate arranges a spontaneous introduction, when she accidentally rear-ends his truck while (naturally) driving carelessly. Amazingly, he isn’t angry; the front of her car took the sole damage, which he graciously offers to repair. She accepts; he follows her home.

(I know what you’re thinking, and you have a point. How many “stranger danger” scenarios like this have we seen? But this isn’t that sort of film, so you gotta just roll with it. However ludicrously unlikely it seems.)

Veronica Mars: Back on the case

Veronica Mars (2014) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: Rated PG-13, for profanity, sexual content, drug content and violence
By Derrick Bang

Rob Thomas obviously is an honorable fellow, and he deserves considerable credit.

Veronica (Kristen Bell) is surprised to discover that yet another intimate video of Logan
(Jason Dohring) and his recently murdered girlfriend has been posted to the Internet,
further swaying public opinion into believing that he's guilty of the crime. But this begs
the more pressing question: Who shot this footage, and how?

Mindful that his big-screen Veronica Mars project owes its very existence to the crowd-funded Kickstarter campaign that raised $5.7 million, Thomas — as director and co-scripter, sharing the latter credit with Diane Ruggiero — did his very best to deliver a film that meets fan expectation and smoothly updates events from the cherished 2004-07 TV series ... while also functioning as a self-contained adventure that (hopefully) is approachable to first-time viewers with no reference to the original show.

A tall order, and one that Thomas mostly pulls off.

Full disclosure demands that I acknowledge being one of the 91,585 Kickstarter backers, from 3,655 different cities in 88 countries, who pledged some $$$ to help create this film. It made perfect sense to me, since I’ve also (for example) supported PBS programming with pledges since being old enough to write checks.

As one of the show’s longtime fans — star Kristen Bell refers to us as “marshmallows” — I’m quite pleased by the results. That said, this big-screen Veronica Mars looks and feels less like a full-blown movie, and more like a two-part television episode granted a bit more budgeting juice. I recall, back in the day, that several of the 1960s Man from UNCLE two-parters were re-cut and released theatrically, particularly in foreign countries; this Veronica Mars update shares that pedigree.

Back during Hollywood’s golden age, this would have been a respectable B-feature. Nothing wrong with that; indeed, many so-called B films are remembered far more fondly today, than the higher-prestige A pictures with which they shared billing.

By way of contrast, the many Star Trek films that followed the original show’s three 1960s seasons definitely look like big-screen spectaculars quite far removed from their humbler TV origins. Joss Whedon’s Serenity, as well, granted impressively opulent closure to the short-lived Firefly, which had gone off the air several years earlier.

It’s an intriguing distinction, perhaps having something to do with the modest, easily relatable sensibilities that made Veronica’s television adventures so approachable in the first place. Veronica also owed her quick popularity, in part, to good timing: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (also from Whedon) had just gone off the air, and Thomas’ plucky high school heroine — and the coterie of friends, frenemies and enemies she gradually accumulated — admirably filled the niche left empty after Buffy had staked her last blood-sucker.