Catch and Release Parent Guide
Parent Movie Review
All the flowers at the Douglas home should be for a wedding. Unfortunately it is a funeral the family is going through. Just before Grady Douglas and Gray Wheeler (Jennifer Garner) were to marry, the adventurous outdoorsman was killed in a sporting accident. Now instead of greeting nuptial guests, Grey endures mourners coming to pay their last respects.
The days and weeks after the interment bring even greater grief, however, as the bereaved bride discovers all kinds of new revelations about her spouse-to-be. It seems that even after a six-year relationship, there are still a few things she didn’t know about the man she was going to marry. For instance, there’s the secret bank account with large monthly withdrawals and a blonde, new age masseuse (Juliette Lewis) that suddenly shows up outside their door with a little boy (Joshua Friesen). There’s also Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), Grady’s playboy friend, who continues to hang around the house long after the memorial service is over.
Luckily, Gray doesn’t have to go through the mourning or discoveries on her own. After moving in with her fiancé‘s former roommates, Dennis (Sam Jaeger) and Sam (Kevin Smith), she finds shoulders to cry on and listening ears. In fact, it appears every man in the movie is in love with Gray to one degree or another. Whenever she so much as tears up, they are there to serve, soothe or sex her. But rather than avoiding Grady’s kind of indiscretions that caused her so much heartache, Gray heads down the same reckless path, jumping in bed with a relative stranger.
Sadly, it’s not just Gray but also the film’s script that is fixated on sex including discussions with several sexual slang terms and all kinds of encounters, from a brief but loud coupling in a bathroom to repeated midnight trysts depicted with plenty of shoulder and back nudity.
Another concern is alcohol consumption, which becomes a staple form of escape for several of the characters. One man, overcome with grief and guilt, mixes a lethal cocktail of liquor and sleeping pills in an apparent suicide attempt. However the serious consequences of the event are diminished by a few comedic quips and some slapstick violence. And therein lies the problem with the film. It neither sustains enough heartfelt conflict to be an earnest drama, nor does it maintain enough of a touching love story to be a classic romantic comedy.
Instead, like the fly fishermen in the film, Catch and Release simply plays with audiences—-offering viewers a variety of new lures for the forlorn Gray. Yet when she finally does fall hook, line and sinker for one option, moviegoers may be left with the unsatisfying sense that the best bait got away.
Starring Jennifer Garner, Timothy Olyphant, Sam Jaeger, Kevin Smith. Running time: 124 minutes. Theatrical release January 25, 2007. Updated April 7, 2009
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Catch and Release
Rating & Content Info
Why is Catch and Release rated PG-13? Catch and Release is rated PG-13 by the MPAA for sexual content, language and some drug use.
Moving through the stages of grief is difficult not only for the bride-to-be but also the many other people who loved Grady. Preoccupied with sexual themes, the film contains a loud, audible pairing as well as numerous visual unions that include some back and shoulder nudity. The script also has ample portrayals of cleavage, an errant hand during a massage and several slang terms for sex. A man’s extramarital relationship results in the birth of a child. A woman briefly comments about her own homosexual encounter. Many of the characters drink, some to the point of drunkenness, as a respite from reality. One man attempts suicide by mixing alcohol with pills. Another man smokes a joint. Moderate profanities along with several shortened extreme expletives are used throughout the film. A child violently stomps on a fish and is later shown playing with a large pocketknife.
Page last updated April 7, 2009
Catch and Release Parents' Guide
Following the death of her soon-to-be husband, Gray has many people express their regrets. What things are appropriate to say? What are not? How can a person offer comfort to someone who is grieving?
The child in this film appears to have had a steady diet of video games and television. In what ways does he appear to have been affected by so much media influence? Do you think violent games and TV shows affect children? For more studies on media violence and children, check out the following sites:
http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/rgcolumns/2007/0118.asp
http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_vlent.shtml
What does this film say about faithfulness and honesty in relationships? How do you feel about Grey’s new love interest?
Home Video
The most recent home video release of Catch and Release movie is May 7, 2007. Here are some details…
DVD Release Date: 8 May 2007
Catch & Release swims into the home video market on DVD and Blu-ray. If you reel in the DVD version, you’ll get the feature presentation plus audio commentaries with writer/director Susannah Grant and Kevin Smith, and Susannah Grant and cinematographer John Lindley. Net the Blu-ray edition and you’ll get all of the above as well as deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, and the cast auditions of Kevin Smith, Juliette Lewis and Sam Jaeger.
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Faithful friends are also underscored in 13 Going on 30, which stars Jennifer Garner as a teenager who grows up over night. Marriage plans are thwarted with a young woman discovers her childhood pal is about to marry someone else in My Best Friend’s Wedding.