SIMON BIRCH (Touchstone) Starring: Joseph Mazzello, Ian Michael Smith, Oliver Platt, David Strathairn, Ashley Judd, Jan Hooks. Screenplay: Mark Steven Johnson, suggested by the novel _A Prayer for Owen Meany_ by John Irving. Producers: Laurence Mark and Roger Birnbaum. Director: Mark Steven Johnson. MPAA Rating: PG-13 (adult themes, profanity) Running Time: 113 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
At least they prepared me right off the bat, right there in the credits. I knew SIMON BIRCH was based on John Irving's whimsically twisted 1989 novel _A Prayer for Owen Meany_, but I had also heard that screenwriter/director Mark Steven Johnson had taken great liberties with the text. I didn't need to wait long to understand how many liberties, thanks to an admirably forthright screen credit: "Suggested by the novel _A Prayer for Owen Meany_." Not "inspired by," not "based on," not even "loosely based on" like the 1995 travesty of _The Scarlet Letter_. "Suggested by."
I wish I had known Johnson was taking suggestions, because I might have offered a few. I might have suggested that he retain slightly more than the basic set-up, involving two 12-year-old friends in a New England Town circa the early 1960s. Joe Wenteworth (Joseph Mazzello) is the son of an unmarried woman (Ashley Judd) who has refused to divulge the identity o fJoe's father; Simon Birch (Ian Michael Smith) was "the smallest delivery ever recorded in the history of Gravestown Memorial Hospital," and has remained unusually small. The two young lives are connected first by their status as town outsiders, then further sealed when an errant Little League foul ball off the bat of tiny Simon has tragic consequences.
Right about there, all similarity to the source material ends. Sure, a few individual details remain, notably a school Christmas pageant which goes dreadfully awry, but even that element is given an ill-advised twist. The film's Simon, like his literary counterpart, has a preternaturally mature sense of existential purpose, an almost arrogant belief that God intends great things for him. It makes no sense for that character -- who schemes in the novel to be the Baby Jesus in the Nativity play because he thinks only he can do the role justice -- to be turned into a grumpy and reluctant Christ-child. It makes even less sense for the Christmas Eve catastrophe to begin with reverent-beyond-his-years Simon trying to feel up the Virgin Mary. Johnson goes for the cheap laughs of projectile vomiting and pre-pubescent groping rather when he should be trying to maintain some consistency in his characterizations.
I don't mean to suggest that SIMON BIRCH is an awful film, particularly if you walk in like most viewers with no knowledge of Irving's novel. Johnson has put together a tremendously appealing cast, including Judd, David Strathairn, and an atypically slime-free Oliver Platt (as the kindly suitor of Joe's mother). The friendship between Joe and Simon is unique and well-developed, though the more experienced Mazzello makes first-time screen actor Smith look quite self-conscious at times. Even the narration (by an uncredited Jim Carrey, who also appears as the adult Joe in the film's present-day framing scenes) is under-stated and amusing. The first half of SIMON BIRCH is generally satisfying, a sprightly and quirky reminiscence cast in the autumn tones of Aaron E. Schneider's cinematography.
It's the latter half, which diverges most sharply from Irving's story, that goes most horribly wrong. The light-hearted, off-beat story takes a sharp turn into melodrama in heavy syrup, centered around a school bus crash which should make everyone who saw THE SWEET HEREAFTER thank Whatever God to Whom They Pray that Mark Steven Johnson didn't get his hands on it. The music score (by the ever-cloying Marc Shaiman) begins reminding us every several seconds that it's time to weep, eventually building to the orchestral equivalent of yanking out your nose hairs one at a time. With its "oh by the way, in case you're a complete moron, here's the moral of the story" punch line of dialogue, SIMON BIRCH is less emotionally cathartic than it is emotionally insulting. Johnson doesn't just streamline Irving's sprawling narrative, he dumb-lines it, casting everything in the broadest tear-jerker strokes. What a waste of a singular story to turn it into a trite Hallmark card of a dramatic experience. The power of suggestion sure can make people do foolish things.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 powerless suggestions: 5.
Visit Scott Renshaw's MoviePage http://www.inconnect.com/~renshaw/ *** Subscribe to receive new reviews directly by email! See the MoviePage for details, or reply to this message with subject line "Subscribe".
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews