Film Review – Paradise

After winning an Academy Award for 2007’s “Juno,” her first produced
screenplay, writer Diablo Cody has finally graduated to the director’s
chair with “Paradise.” In the interim, she flirted with horror
(“Jennifer’s Body”) and achieved greatness with dark comedy (“Young
Adult”), yet the saucy stuff doesn’t appeal to Cody for her helming
debut. “Paradise” doesn’t play it safe but it does play it soft, pulling
the teeth out of a fascinating story that concerns the rejection of
religion and a brush with death, trying to pass the endeavor off as a
feel-good movie about life and love. The sentiment doesn’t adhere, but
the simplicity of the picture is agreeable, with Cody refusing to make
the film laborious just to add weight.
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