Cheap Pumpkin (DVD) (Christina Ricci, Hank Harris) (Adam Larson Broder, Anthony Abrams) Price

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Customer Reviews of Pumpkin

The portrayal of sorority life on Greek Row is a scream and gives countless fodder for satire. The script-writer proves in-tune with what gets an audience laughing out loud. Though the humor can be black at times, the movie does not forego a happy wrapped up ending to carry the black satire through to the end.

Unlike some other reviewers, I found the use of disabled characters in the story humanizing and not at all exploitive. Pumpkin is a "challenged" athlete that garners the assistance of Christina Ricci's privileged "everything's perfect in life" sorority girl, Carolyn McDuffy. Once the two cross paths, there's no turning back and neither's life will be the same.
McDuffy's all-star tennis stud of a boyfriend ends up in car accident along the way with a fantastic Hollywood off the cliff explosion reminiscent of a MOAB (Mother of all Bombs) going off. The viewer must seriously suspend reality to swallow the shape he is in after the crash. Small thing, but there are other areas in the film like that, that prove detracting.

Good entertainment in Pumpkin and recommended viewing for a quirky, edgy, and downright funny satire with a heart.

More stars than are alotted.
The first thing I noticed watching this movie was that Christina Ricci's nipples were seemingly always erect. The second thing was that this was the best movie I've seen in a while. I suppose it was a bit over the top sardonically in nature, but taken as an intentional mawkish view of college life through the eyes of a superficial sorority sister, it came across as the writers/director intended and well-done at that I might add. I mean it featured Emiliana Torrini singing a beautiful rendition of an old Rod McKuen poem(what could be more ridiculous than him?!?!) in a haunting and Bjorkesque old scratched up record sort of way, what else would one expect from Pumpkin? Gone with the Wind it isn't. Thank God. But a pleasant surprise it is.

A monstruous and contrived, almost outwardly-mocking relationship between a rich, prep-school college sorority girl and a handicapped man turns into a love story gone wrong, err...right. It starts as a sisterhood pledge to win some coveted trophy by helping challenged athletes, but Ricci's shallow character soon falls for Pumpkin who is the antipode of her jam-it-in-and-kiss-later stud-jock-boyfriend.

The love story is very sweet, despite it being "improper" and to everyone's disdain, but finally leads to her loss of social standing and subsequently a once-promising life tailspinning into oblivion and hopeless loss. 6 stars out of 5.

Dissapointing
I am a huge Christina Ricci fan, however this film dissapointed me. The attempts at comedy seemed awkward and seemed to come at the most dramatic times of the movie. It just didn't *flow*. Oh, and while we're on the topic of comedy, the only funny parts of the whole movie were those shown in the trailer.

Christina wasn't beleivable as a sorority girl. The personalities of the characters were inconsistant -- one moment they were snobby and shallow the next caring, and then shallow again. She seems to have fallen in love with Pumpkin after one day of frisbee tossing.

I was confused also with the time period of the movie. I'm assuming it was meant to be modern day (it says "not long ago" in the very begining and she drives a Wolkswagen that wasn't too old) yet thats about all that suggests that. The hair and clothes are dated and so is the music they listen to. The movie seemed to portray a sorority in the 60's.

On a positive note, although Pumpkin had very few lines, the camera really captured his soul. That's a good thing since the script and overall flow of the story didn't. I feel his character could have really been developed better, however it seems they were too busy at desperate attempts for a laugh. Another plus was the fact that the film was very colorful and beautiful to watch. That's about the only thing that kept me watching.

The end was dissapointing and confusing. The entire movie shows how a "normal" person and a mentally handicapped person can fall in love and connect on a deep emotional level. However, at the very end, one becomes disturbed when Carolyn asks pumkin grade-school question about metaphors and he obviously doesn't understand. She gives this, "what am i getting myself into" look to the camera as the walk off into the sunset. This seems to go against everything the movie was trying to say about two people in love and made me uncomfortable. It seemed to hint that Carolyn will spend her life being Pumpkin's mother rather than lover.

You can tell that this movie was meant to make some sort of an impact, but seemed to take a wrong turn after the first ten minutes.