[Movie] Finding Life Beyond Money In "The Ultimate Gift" Review

I didn't have to see this movie before I knew it would be one I'd enjoy my time on. Although, I read a bit about the storyline but it didn't prepare me for what it had for me. It's one of those movies based on a best selling novel and one I wish I could find the novel to read too. Something tells me I'll enjoy the novel reading even more.

This story teaches a huge lesson even to me as a viewer, as much as it taught the lead character of the story. Life is beautiful but sometimes, we fail to see most of it focusing on just one side of life that may not really be what our lives need to be beautiful and colorful. The movie explores learning about the beauties of life one after one.

"The Ultimate Gift" is an old movie though, released in the year 2006 starring Drew Fuller (the actor that led me to find this movie, by the way) as Jason Stevens, James Garner as Howard 'Red' Stevens and Abigail Breslin as Emily Rose. Talk of a family drama, this is a good one for a family time with the beautiful lessons.

Jason never shared good memories with his late billionaire grandfather (Red Stevens) so he expects that the inheritance that will be left for him will be money, another transaction as usual so he can go live his extravagant life as he had been doing before his grandfather's death. But Red Steven had a plan for his grandson, one that made no sense from the start but was focused on changing his grandson's perspectives of life.

Jason reluctantly begins his grandfather's task starting from the first one, to get 12 different gifts in life. He first learns the gift of work, unlike what he had imagined. Jason struggles to continue but as his grandfather knows him, he puts in something juicy for him to continue as he follows through with him by a pre-recorded video. With his grandfather's lawyer and friend in charge, Jason slowly but indeed got all the gifts.

While in the middle of doing the tasks, Jason meets Emily and her mother, who slowly warms up to him and he got almost all the gifts from knowing them. There were 12 gifts in all... The gift of work, money, friends, learning, problems, family, laughter, dreams, giving, gratitude, a day and love. Each, he learned from little Emily as she agrees to be his friend for rest of her short life.

The story goes deeper than this but I won't give a spoiler and let you have a nice time seeing it for yourself. Since it's an old movie, there will be some obvious scenes that could have been done better but the story was well explained by the characters that I got a favourite character, Emily, bright girl who matchmade her mum to Jason.

I would recommend the movie for a few reasons, the characters did well in their roles, the story teaches meaningful lessons and it surprises viewers in where they least expect it. You should check it out and let me know what you think.