Willow

A small boy/man with big ambition.

The first scene goes on for a while and has orchestra music banging on over some nice photos of a forest. It kind of looks like a screensaver you might get pre-loaded on a new computer. Basically all the things you’d expect to see in the woods, like trees and leaves and bears going to the toilet. But then… what’s this? An absolutely massive fly lands on the leafy vista! But then… what’s this (again)? It’s not a real forest at all. But a bonsai forest (or ‘borest’)!

[CREDITS APPEAR]

We don’t really know any of the names in the credits because they all look Chinese/Japanese/Korean. It’s also our first indication that it might be a subtitled movie. As dread creeps in and we debate turning it off completely, a massively Brummie accent booms over the audio. Relief! The film ‘Willow’ is actually set in Warwick and all in the English language. We won’t need to read anything after all!

[THE BOREST PICTURES DISAPPEAR AND WE BOTH HEAR AND SEE A BOY]

The voice belongs to a very small, fairly ugly child called Steve. Naturally, he’s picked on, as all unattractive children are. Particularly as despite having the appearance of an eight year old child, his voice seems to have broken. It sounds more like a man’s, as heard speaking very quickly from a telephone mouthpiece in a cartoon. It’s disconcerting. But as we see through some particularly harrowing bullying scenes (I won’t go into them here but one boy wants to bully Steve so much that he licks raw chicken with the express intention of developing diarrhoea and then releasing it into Steve’s bag), we do feel sorry for him.

[STEVE IS WALKING IN THE PARK TRYING TO BEFRIEND DOGS]

It’s in the park that Steve sees his first bonsai tree. And when his little face (disproportionate to his body) lights up, we’re happy too. Turns out the tree is just far away, which is a bit of a disappointment. But it’s not long before he sees a real bonsai tree owned by the kindly Japanese karate master next door, Mr Tamagotchi. They strike up a very close, but in no way inappropriate, relationship. Eyebrows are raised when the Japanese master instructs the child to wax him, but to be honest, most of us are just glad that Steve finally has a companion.

There’s just one thing missing from this idyllic situation. Much as Steve proper loves the bonsai, he realises that Tamagotchi’s collection has almost every type of tree but one — the willow. Tamagotchi tells him that it’s never been done before. The willow bonsai isn’t possible. But instead of being sad, it’s music to Steve’s ears. (To emphasise this, we actually hear some music. It’s Japanese-y type music that sounds so much like the theme tune to Takeshi’s Castle, the producers sued the filmmakers when they got wind of it. This explains why the movie has such a low budget and poor quality effects.)

[WITHOUT A WORD, STEVE WADDLES OFF HOME AND DIALS UP HIS INTERNET MODEM. THE WHOLE PROCESS, INCLUDING CONNECTION TIME, TAKES AROUND TEN MINUTES. ON DVD, THIS IS FINE AS WE CAN MAKE A CUP OF TEA. BUT IN THE CINEMA THIS FEELS LIKE AGES.]

Steve does what anyone would do if they were told something had never been done before. That’s right, he checked on Wikipedia. And when he saw that a ‘willow bonsai’ page didn’t exist, he set out to write it. And also grow one in real life. In a post-production interview, a cast member pointed out that even a cursory glance online reveals that weeping willow bonsai are actually one of the most common forms of the stunted tree. But as they’d already printed loads of promotional chopsticks saying ‘Willow’, the actor was subsequently sacked and replaced with Daniel Day-Lewis’ much older brother, also called Daniel (apparently a huge disappointment to his parents even from a young age).

As with many films of its type, the protagonist man-child Steve wholeheartedly believes that if he achieves this one fairly pointless thing, his life will do a complete turnaround. To emphasise how bad things are for Steve at the moment, we see him verbally abused by people everywhere he goes. “You idiot”, the ‘V’ sign and the classic “Make like a bonsai tree and leave” are all shouted/aimed at him in the background of almost every scene. It becomes tiresome to the viewer after a while but only serves to highlight Steve’s plight.

[THE CHORUS BUT NOT THE VERSES FROM MICHAEL JACKSON’S ‘EARTH SONG’ PLAYS]

After a short clip of him in the B&Q garden centre (for copyright reasons, all the logos are blurred out, sometimes covering Steve’s face by accident and making him look like a victim in a Crimewatch reconstruction), he has everything he needs. Seeds are planted, soil is watered, journal is written in (“Diary writer” is another scathing insult he faces on a daily basis). So when the bonsai seeds take root, we’re rooting for him too.

As the overall storyline is minimal at best, the bulk of the movie (almost 4.5 hours) focuses on his many attempts to grow the tree. It keeps dying. So, he has to start again, eleven, maybe twelve times. But as Steve rightly points out to Mr Tamagotchi (who by now, in fact has developed an unhealthy obsession with the boy), “Thirteen is lucky for some/me!”. However, this one also fails and we endure a further nine attempts before he cracks it. His quest is over. His life will now be changed forever/until the sequel. Because he’s done it — he’s created the world’s first dwarf willow in Warwick.

[CREDITS ROLL AGAIN, REPEATED FROM THE START]