True story of little red wagons filled up with love
You don't think of empathy as something you have to teach your child. They're born with it, you'd guess. Or life will provide that lesson.
You don't think of empathy as something you have to teach your child.
They're born with it, you'd guess. Or life will provide that lesson.
Laurie Bonner (Anna Gunn) didn't take that chance. A widow and a single mother of two, she'd had bad stretches, but knew others had it even rougher than she did: "One day you're just living your life, and then bam, you're struggling."
Zach, her son, took that idea and ran with it. And he started by filling his little red wagon with hurricane relief supplies. And as Little Red Wagon makes clear, for Zach (Chandler Canterbury), that was just the beginning.
"Inspired by a true story," Little Red Wagon is about a boy in Tampa, Fla., who, after joining his family in making fearful preparations for Hurricane Charley, thought those supplies should go to victims of the storm when Tampa dodged that 2004 bullet.
With the help of his sister (Daveigh Chase), he hands out fliers soliciting supplies from neighbors. They collect wagonload after wagonload. Mom is impressed, then overwhelmed, and even a little dismayed as this effort grows into a cause.
But she doesn't rein in his altruistic impulse. She takes Zach to a hurricane evacuation shelter where he sees his efforts pay dividends.
Zach sees kids who have lost everything, and figures they would feel better about their plight if they just had a toy and a few necessities they could call their own.
Zach, and Laurie learn about nonprofit 501(c)(3) status. They discover helpful, grateful officials and officious bureaucrats, generous merchants and celebrity charity poseurs. Next thing you know, backpacks full of goodies ("Zach Packs") are filling the shelters all along the long swath of Charley's path.
Screenwriter Patrick Sheane Duncan (Courage Under Fire) balances this uplifting tale with the story of former neighbors of Zach's (Frances O'Connor and Dylan Matzke) who find themselves homeless, on the downward spiral of losing job and home, of being robbed in shelters. It's a sober object lesson, even if Duncan fails to properly flesh it out.
But the performers are, to a one, quite good. They make Little Red Wagon more quietly inspiring than its modest budget would suggest.
Little Red Wagon ** (out of four stars)
Directed by David Anspaugh. With Chandler Canterbury, Anna Gunn, Daveigh Chase, and Frances O'Connor. Distributed by Phase 4.
Running time: 1 hour, 42 min.
Parent's guide: PG (adult themes)
Playing at: Regal 24, OaksEndText