| Buy the DVD |   |
| Buy the VHS | |
| Genre: | Family |
| Year: | 1997 |
| Rating: | PG |
| Length: | 90min |
| Country: | USA |
| Cast: | Renee Russo, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Cumming, Irma P. Hall, Paul Reubenss, Mark Wilson. |
| Credits: | Written & Directed by Caroline Thompson. Screen Story by William Joyce and Caroline Thompson. Based on the book "Animals Are My Hobby" by Gertude Davies Lintz. Produced by Steve Nicolaides and Fred Fuchs. Released by Columbia. |
Synopsis
Buddy is the true story of Gertude "Trudy" Lintz (Rene Russo), an eccentric socialite in the 1920s who is the most generous animal keeper since Noah. On her New York estate, she, her physicial husband Bill (Robbie Coltrane) and her loyal assistant Dick (Alan Cumming) care for a menagerie as extensive as a zoo's: a kennel of championship Briard dogs, Rex rabbits, guinea pigs, schools of tropical fish, flocks of geese and rare pigeons, a stable of horses, two horned owls, three snakes and a kitten. Adding to the fun are her four chimpanzees whom she treats as her children; their clothes are tailor-made at Bergdorf Goodman; she teaches them table manners, how to play croquet, mix martinis, do light housework and say their prayers. And they become the stars of Chicago's 1933 World's fair. But her gorilla, Buddy, is her favorite child.
When she first sees him, he is a sickly baby gorilla. But she opens her home and her heart to him, saves him from the jaws of death, and proceeds to raise him as if he were her own...and, for a time, he is. Still, Buddy inevitably gows up, and keeping him becomes increasingly dangerous for Trudy, not because he is vicious but because he can't fit into the human world he lives in anymore, and yet can't be his true self either. Finally, Trudy has to make the decision all mothers face - she has to let go. No amount of nurture can suppress Buddy's nature, and Trudy must choose what is best for him. As Trudy says in her autobiography Animals Are My Hobby, "As Buddy got older, he had things to tell me which none of us can express in words - affection, longing, grief, or peaceful communion. he would look into my eyes long and deeply as if he were trying to make me understand what he really was, inside his great uncouth body."
Filled with humor and pathos, Buddy, a fairy tale-love story will deepen our understanding of the profund, mysterious connection to our closest cousin in the animal kingdom.
Buddy stars Rene Russo (Ransom, Get Shorty, Lethal Weapon 3, In The Line of Fire, Freejack). Co-starring are Robbie Coltrane (GoldenEye, Henry V), Alan Cumming (Emma, Circle of Friends), Irma P. Hall (A Family Thing), Paul Rubens (Matilda, Batman Returns), Peter Elliott (Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan - Lord of the Apes, Gorillas in the Mist) and Mark Wilson (Babe, Pinocchio)
|
|
|
|
