At Christmas I wanted to watch a feel-good non Christmas movie; I've had my fill of Christmas movies at my age so I remembered an article about a true story a friend had sent me a link to a while back and which I was told was made into a movie. Sure enough, the true story of Gerald and Marjorie Selbee published in the Huffington Post, a very detailed article, some time ago, was indeed set to a flic in which the main characters were played by actors I really like. Bryan Cranston and Annette Bening play Jerry and Marge in this movie. They both make their characters feel very real, and of course as sympathetic as could be. Based on everything I read about these two Michigan residents, they were/are undoubtedly sympathetic.
Sometimes plain regular people do extraordinary things and you don't hear or read about it. But we heard about this one from The Boston Globe broke the story first; the Globe made it mostly about the MIT students who had uncovered the same flaw in the "wind fall lottery" as Gerald Selbee had; the Selbees however where too sympathetic to make sensational news. That's what I concluded as well as how this movie recounts the events, thankfully. Many, if not most, other major newspapers eventually published that same story
The reason I consider it a feel good movie is because of what Jerry and Marge did with the winnings, and how they were always humble about their smart betting; also, the way in which Jerry shared the winnings with fellow town residents is a gem. Real stories have a way of affecting how you might rate a movie, recommend it to friends if you do, and simply how it indubitably has built-in credibility. If you are looking for a feel-good movie, at any time of the year, 'Jerry and Marge Go Large' is one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend.
