Not everyone in the world is supposed to have a happy life no matter what they do to make it one. Christopher Rocket (played by Jimmy Fallon) is one of these people that just can’t seem to be happy or have a happy life. His father Ron Rocket (played by Tom Arnold) is distant while around his wife Jane Rocket (played by Sharon Stone) and don’t even talk to his son at all and only has one love in his life, golf. Now as an adult Christopher finds out that his father has had a stroke while out on the golf course but when going back to his home town to visit his sick father in the hospital, Christopher must deal with his life and how it has turned out.
The Year of Getting to Know Us felt like it took a year to watch. Jimmy Fallon is not the best of actors, not the worst, but I think what hurts him is that he gets movies like this one where it already at not being that great in the first place. He has a good list of supporting characters like Lucy Liu who plays his characters girlfriend and Sharon Stone, but both of these characters are only in the movie sparingly. With so little amount of screen time for these two women they can’t use the talent that they have to maybe make this movie better.
My main quip about this movie was the personality of the character of Christopher. Having the character grow up to be similar to his father is expected, and even said at one point in the movie, but the two characters of the father Ron played by Tom Arnold and the son Christopher as an adult played by Jimmy Fallon is that one is callous, has no feelings, and just don’t care who he hurts while the other is just self centered and selfish. To figure out which is which is simple in the movie but for now here in the review I will let you know that the father is the callous uncaring one where the son is the selfish one.
From the start of the film to the end Christopher is more worried about being trapped in a relationship with his girlfriend than anything else in his life. Having all the flash backs to his childhood to show why he has turned out the way he is as an adult is really annoying. All that was needed to have me as the viewer learn that Christopher had a bad childhood is to show it a few times and then go on with him being an adult. The rest of all the multitude of flash-backs used to show the childhood problems that the character dealt with became old real fast and annoying even faster.
The Year of Getting to Know Us is really slow moving that drops the ball by over playing the character development in the film. At one moment there seemed to be a good dilemma when Christopher goes back to his hometown and meets up with some of his old childhood friends. However once it’s used the story goes quickly back to the brooding, selfish Christopher that’s boring to watch. The Year of Getting To Know Us could have easily been a half hour to 40 minute long movie that might have ended up being better to watch but at the hour and half that the film is just takes away any enjoyment the film had in it.Though for an hour and half I got to enjoy a clean looking Blu-Ray with some decent sound. Not that it does much good for the film but I can’t say it didn’t look bad at all.