Burning Bodhi (2015) Cody Horn, Kaley Cuoco, Sasha Pieterse, Virginia Madsen, Landon Liboiron Movie Review

Burning Bodhi (2015)   2/52/52/52/52/5


Landon Liboiron and Kaley Cuoco in Burning Bodhi (2015)

A Millennial Chill

A group of high school friends who have all gone their own way learn via social media that one of their group, the guy who basically held them all together, has died. It leads to them all making the journey home for his funeral and in doing so brings the old friends back in touch with not just each other but also parents. And in coming together it stirs up old and new feelings as well as remembering how they felt the world was their oyster back then.

"The Big Chill" for a new generation would be the quickest way to describe "Burning Bodhi" except those of the generation who I reckon this has been made for probably haven't got a clue what "The Big Chill" is. But it is simple enough and to be honest whilst "Burning Bodhi" has the death of a friend at its heart it is really a pretty typical reunion movie between high school friends whose paths have been different. As such we have old emotions being stirred up, romantic feelings being stoked, old issues still causing problems and so on and so forth. Yes some of the things are different such as we have a character played by Kaley Cuoco who ended up in jail after losing it but the focus is on the friends dealing with both new and old feelings having come together.

That is where "Burning Bodhi" is going to divide audiences because for some the dealing with the feelings will be fantastic whilst for others will be utterly terrible. That is because writer and director Matthew McDuffie have focused on a relatively young generation who in many ways haven't really grown up yet and experienced everything which life will deal them and as such can't really deal with the death of a friend or how they feel when they are reunited with old friends. The thing is that whilst that maybe spot on and works for those of the generation of the characters in the movie for those who are older makes it extremely dull with characters who not only appear moody and self obsessed but are uninteresting and forgettable.

What this all boils down to is that whilst "Burning Bodhi" might work for the generation of the characters in the movie it doesn't work for me and I suspect my generation who might find the likes of "The Big Chill" and "Indian Summer" more to their liking if they want a reunion movie to watch.


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