David Duneman

Expository Writing

Joe Serio

4/28/13

Elwood Be Down

            I did not know what to expect from Harvey when I started watching it but it turned out to be a very entertaining movie. This movie revolves around Jimmy Stewarts’ performance of Elwood P. Dowd. I believe his statement to the mailman, “Every day is a beautiful day”, is a phrase that pretty much describes Mr. Dowd’s personality. There is nothing not to like about Elwood P. Dowd; he is social, he is as optimistic as one can be, he is charming with women, he is very nonchalant, and most importantly he is real. It seems that Dowd is not all there and not really fully paying attention, but yet he is almost always doing the right thing. And Stewarts pulls off all these traits perfectly. It seems to be that the audience is almost the only people that enjoy his presence. I think the whole moral of Harvey is that life will be just fine if you believe it will be just like Elwood Dowd believes. We first learn this when the mental institution takes in his sister Veta in as a crazy person instead of Dowd himself. This scene was probably one of my favorites because Elwood is trying to tell the doctors of his giant rabbit friend the entire time but they keep interrupting him with questions and concerns. This is like a metaphor of many business systems of America, the patients are basically just a one-time thing for them so the business just wants them in and out as soon as possible, and it seems they won’t even let the patient get a word in just like with Dowd.

            I found some similarities between Harvey and The Purple Rose of Cairo. They both focused on the imagination quite a bit. Elwood imagined his rabbit friend Harvey, and Cecilia imagined Tom Baxter. Although in both these films the imaginary characters are real. I think that this is not really saying the imaginary characters are real, but rather saying that the imagination is more real than most people seem to believe.

            This movie seemed to have one section solely focused on sex. When Veta gets released from the mental institution she comes out saying that all they think about is sex and they tried to have their way with her. She didn’t even stop to think that she was thought to be a patient, but came to the conclusion that they were trying to have sex with her. And after this scene I don’t think they mentioned sex at all, or before for that matter.

            This was a wonderful movie, mostly because of the character Elwood P. Dowd, and I do believe ill watch this again in the future.