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Actors: Eric Stolz, Cher, Sam Elliott, Laura Dern
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| Review Summary and Plot Commentary about Mask |
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Rocky Dennis is a 16 year old high School freshman who loves life, his best friend and his baseball cards and has a horribly disfiguring cranial disease that has distorted his head out of shape and makes him bizarre to look at.
Rocky lives with his tough, single mom in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles. Her name is Rusty and her friends and boyfriends consist all of outlaw biker types. Rusty makes no apologies for her lifestlye. She loves to party, get drunk, get high, get laid.... but most of all, she loves Rocky more than anything and is fiercly determined that he live a normal teenager's life.
Rocky is a straight A student, is very popular among his peers, who manage to overlook his deformity, and dreams of one day riding a motorcycle across Europe. In fact, Rocky is so normal, that the movie tends to focus mainly on Rusty and her problems with drugs and sleeping around. Gar, a man from Rusty's past, shows up one day and becomes a father that Rusty never had.
Rocky develops a relationship with a blind girl who he meets at a summer camp for the blind, but her parents are very protective and do everything they can (including ignoring all of Rocky's phone calls to her) to shun Rocky from their daughter's life. Things start going downhill for Rocky at this point, especially when he begins his sophomore year in high school.
--Stephanie, Resident Scholar
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A teenager born with a disease that caused his face to become very disfigured tries to live a normal life. He suffers from terrible headaches caused by the disease. His mother is a drug addict who hangs out with a motorcycle gang. He excels in school despite being an outcast. At a summercamp for the blind he meets a girl and falls in love. However, the girl's parents won't let her see him because of his looks. Fortunately, he's able to see her one last time before she moves. Finally, he's relatively happy. One morning, his mother goes in to wake him up for school and finds that the disease that made his life so difficult had finally killed him.
--Brandon Swenson, Resident Scholar
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The protagonist is a teen with a disfiguring fatal disease.
His face is mask-like from birth. He is judged first by his appearance, and has that to overcome. He experiences the look of revulsion on faces of those he meets based on first impression: what is seen. He excells in school.
He works as an aide at a camp for blind children, and tutors a pretty blind girl who falls in love with him: Her eyes are blind, but without the barrier of sight she "sees" him for who he truly is--his essence. Others who see with their eyes are "blind" to the beautiful soul behind the "mask" of the disfigured teen. His mother is a wild biker chick that he worries about. At the end the boy dies but not before he experiences true love.
--Ann k. Engelstad, Resident Scholar
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| Analysis of Mask |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Time/era of movie:
- 1960's-1970's
Romance/Love/Hugging
Yes
Inner struggle or disability
Yes
Brain/Body not working?
- physical disability
Lover is...
- physically ill or deformed
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- student
Age:
- a teen
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Hair color?
- red
Hair type
- (man) long girliemon hair
Body type
- (man) average
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor?
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Very much smarter than other characters
Physique
- physically sick
Secondary Main Character
Identity:
- Female
Hair color
- red
Body type
- (woman) very skinny
How much in movie?
- 90%-100%
Ethnicity/Nationality
- White (American)
Main Adversary
Identity:
- general circumstances
Setting
United States
Yes
The US:
- California
Small town?
Yes
Misc setting
- school
Style
Movie makes you feel...
- depressed/sad
Any profanity?
- Occasional swearing
If soundtrack VERY NOTICEABLE...
- Classic/oldies rock
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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