MovieChat Forums > The Wizard (1989) Discussion > The love Corey has for Jimmy

The love Corey has for Jimmy


Is it me or does it seem like the only one who TRULY loved Jimmy was Corey? While others want to place Jimmy in a home, Corey feels that what Jimmy needs is love and takes him on the adventure of a lifetime. Putnam was just after Jimmy to make money but I guess that's why he was hired...though maybe he could've tried being nice to Jimmy instead of just trying to snatch him. In addition, Corey was the one who explained about Jennifer.

I don't know about you guys, but the entire time I was watching this movie, I kept on seeing Corey as the brother who truly wanted to care for and love his brother.

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Corey was the only one acting assertively on Jimmy's behalf, while Sam and Nick were taking a more passive approach. Nick wasn't in the position to do anything and didn't believe it was right to try. Sam was not only largely broken up about his daughter's death that he avoided talking about her, but did not challenge Christine's parenting because he believed that more dissent was something no one needed and would only cause more grief. I've viewed the Nickelodeon version twice in one week (the only version i've seen) and Christine loses my sympathy each time (Bateman's already a jackass). I know Christine is trying to act in Jimmy's best interest, but refusing to let Sam see his son and hiring a bounty hunter to get him back instead? choosing to spend money for hiring someone rather than let his father go get him? treating her stepsons like crap? these are the signs of someone who should have NEVER been a mother!

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The point I got here was that Corey was the only one who truly understood Jimmy. I think Sam and Christine both loved him but had different ways of showing it.

For Christine, I don't necessarily think she was a bad mother. The combination of the death of her daughter, divorce from Sam and Jimmy's personality issues caused her to make irrational decisions such as putting him in a home. I don't think it was to get him out of her hair rather she didn't know what else to do so she decided to try that. The influence of Bateman, who is shown to be a WASPy guy who would be the last person that would understand the needs of a child in Jimmy's situation plays a factor as well. While not said, it is highly likely Bateman has no children of his own and likely doesn't want any. Jimmy just "came with the package" of marrying Christine. I don't think he maliciously is trying to bump Jimmy out of their lives either but like Christine doesn't understand and doesn't want to try to. Therefore, they make irrational decisions that THEY feel are best for him but are ultimately not.

Sam is also distraught over the Jennifer death/divorce combination and as mentioned takes a passive approach to Jimmy's future. Sam is shown to be a caring guy who gets overly emotional and passionate about things at times. This is evidenced by his arguments with Nick and going ballistic on Putnam.

The biggest thing here to me is that Corey and Nick obviously stayed with Sam after the divorce so I think this is Sam's way of saying that they are even with divvying up what they had during marriage including children. Christine did not birth Nick or Corey and therefore has no legal right to either one. Jennifer tragically died so all she has left is Jimmy. By fighting for some type of custody of Jimmy, Sam would be trying to take the one thing Christine had left which would not be true to his character.

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The most mature, sensible, and emotionally intelligent view so far, I was going to say things along the same lines.

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^^^ Agree with everything in this post.

Poorly Lived and Poorly Died, Poorly Buried and No One Cried

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Is it me or does it seem like the only one who TRULY loved Jimmy was Corey?


It's just you. Everyone clearly loved Jimmy. There are serious problems with this suggestion.

While others want to place Jimmy in a home, Corey feels that what Jimmy needs is love and takes him on the adventure of a lifetime.


Except Jimmy desperately needs help. The best place for him to get that help is in the home. It's *beep* but nobody in the family is equipped to help Jimmy deal with witnessing his sisters death. The trip helped him become more communicative, but he still needs a lot of therapy. By the end of the movie he still hasn't dealt with that issue.

To suggest the parents love Jimmy less because they want him to get help is wrong. Horribly wrong.

Putnam was just after Jimmy to make money but I guess that's why he was hired...


Putnam shouldn't be part of this discussion. He has no reason to love Jimmy. He's just a stranger doing a job. He goes about doing it in terrible ways, but there's no reason for him to show Jimmy any love.

In addition, Corey was the one who explained about Jennifer.


Yeah, to the audience and Haley. But all the other significant players were already perfectly aware of what happened.


I don't know about you guys, but the entire time I was watching this movie, I kept on seeing Corey as the brother who truly wanted to care for and love his brother.


The problem is, what Corey does is horrible irresponsible and could have done MUCH MORE harm than good. Think about all the ways their trip could have gone wrong and tell me that he's worse off in a home where he'll get therapy and deal with his issues.

Their adventure makes for an entertaining movie, but Corey was absolutely wrong to run away with his mentally ill little brother.

The new home of Welcome to Planet Bob: http://kingofbob.blogspot.ca/

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The best place for him to get that help is in the home. It's *beep* but nobody in the family is equipped to help Jimmy deal with witnessing his sisters death.



The HOME isn't even equipped to deal with a 13 year old with a skateboard who just walks in AND out with a patient, oh yeah they're going to REALLY help Jimmy.

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Well... It my be the wrong home, but he needs some home (not family home, home for children with traumas), but they were definitely incompetent child psychologists, what the family discovered by happenstance (what "California" meant) good child psychologists shall have been able to figure...

And in their defense, Corey entered using the fact that he was the patient's half brother paying a visit, then he hid in plain sight.

BUT EVERYONE WHO WAS JIMMY'S BLOOD RELATIVE LOVED HIM!

Corey did the best to get close to him, to understand him, he was the most empathic...

But Christine was the most objective albeit reluctant

The father and the eldest siblings were those who were the most ashamed of the turn of events, specially the eldest sibling who, if I recall the dialogue right, was said to be apathetic to Jimmy until he got traumatized and was also said to have been the one who shall have been looking over Jimmy and Jenny when Jenny died and that this turned him more caring of his youngest brother (he calls his father on not following Corey's demands that they do something about what Christine is doing because he thinks that kind of seclusion wont do him any better). The father's guilt is manifested as lack of decision so he just lets Christine decide... Until he finds Corey took his li'l bro other and will be pursued by a criminal which makes him grow a pair after being emmasculated for years by the death of his young girl.

The gaming scenes that are essential to the movie put videogames as serious business (well, it is mostly seen through children's eyes, but the salesmen are ridiculous as well as Sam binge playing) and, ironically, manage to distract of the valuable aspects of the movie; deep bonds and deep blossoming bonds between the characters... If anything only Putnam's madness is out of place, well, that and how the videogaming is over the top an absurd in the movie.

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Bateman did not love Jimmy, he didn't hate him, but he didn't love him either, to him Jimmy was a burden to be carried, a load to bear, because he is responsible, because he knows the law wants him to be.

You cannot blame Corey for his decision, he was young and immature himself.

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