Simon Birch by Curtis Edmonds -- blueduck@hsbr.org
Movies cheat, everyone knows that. There's a whole industry dedicated to special effects, the smoke and mirrors filmmakers need to create whatever illusions they need to tell their story. However, we've gotten so used to looking at the visual effects that sometimes we forget the other tricks of the Hollywood trade. Simon Birch has no visual gimmickry to speak of. The only special effect used is not a model or a CGI bluescreen computerized image but an idea -- the idea of destiny. Unlike giant cruise ships or frothing tyrannosaurs, destiny is cheap. All you have to do is write the script so that you tip the audience off to what's going to happen. It's called foreshadowing -- and if foreshadowing were eyeshadowing, Simon Birch would look like Tammy Faye Bakker.
The movie starts off in a graveyard, (in a town called Gravestown, no less) with narrator Jim Carrey standing over the graves of his mother (Ashley Judd) and his childhood friend Simon Birch (Ian Michael Smith). You would think that would be enough to inform us of the fate of the characters, wouldn't you? Well, you'd be wrong. When the time comes for the mother to die, it's set up by more earnest, serious narration (yes, it's that Jim Carrey) and an agonizingly tedious slow motion shot of the errant foul ball that hits her in the head and kills her. In fact, it's so slow that the dimmer members of the audience could be heard to say, "Hey, that lady's gonna get hit in the head with that baseball."
And if the clunky foreshadowing of the plot weren't enough, we are left with the character of Simon Birch. Simon is a tiny little boy, with thick Coke-bottle glasses, hearing aids, and a whiny, annoying voice -- "like strangled mice", we're told. He is the movie's chief standard-bearer for the idea of destiny. He tells everyone that he is God's chosen instrument, and that God has destined him to be a hero. He is called on to make oracular pronouncements from time to time -- he tells poor Oliver Platt that he doesn't think he has long to live, just as if he's read the script. Predictably, this attitude gets annoying. In fact, I could start the next twelve sentences with the word "predictably", because so much about the plot is predictable -- and what's not given away in the storyline is given away by the narration or the background music.
Having said that, it's still possible to make a good movie that's predictable, just as it's possible to enjoy a trip to somewhere you've been a thousand times. Simon Birch ends up being a decent movie, even if it can't overcome the limitations of its script. The heart of the movie is the relationship between Simon and his best friend Joe (Joseph Mazzello). They're both very gifted actors who happen to be under voting age. When you think about it, it's a little odd. You have big-time Hollywood producers forking over millions of dollars to make a movie and placing their trust in two kids who can't drive. The best thing about Simon Birch is that Smith and Mazzello prove that they're worthy of such trust.
The first thing that I noticed about Smith was that he wasn't on the movie poster. The poster depicts a small baby being held out of a pool of water by two disembodied hands. Smith is about 3 feet tall, with teeth jutting out at ninety-degree angles, and while he's no poster boy, we're constantly reminded that he's "cute, like a little doll". And he is cute, the audience likes him, and that goodwill is enough to carry him through some very odd moments -- such as when he stands up in church and asks, "What do coffee and donuts have to do with God?" Smith does a superb job in a role that would be difficult for an actor of any age. Mazzello's part isn't as showy -- he's basically a nice kid getting picked on by life. (It's sort of like a Wonder Years episode where Fred Savage's mom dies.) On the surface, there's not a lot of emotional depth to his character -- but what there is, he brings out. Mazzello does himself proud in his first major leading role
In comparison, the adult parts are drab. Ashley Judd is luminous as the doomed mother, but she's not onscreen long enough to make any kind of impression. Oliver Platt is the designated Good Guy, and he's given little to do other than be good. Only David Strathairn makes any kind of impression as the erring New England minister.
If life is, as Forrest Gump tells us, like a box of chocolates, Simon Birch is a Hershey bar. You know what you're going to get -- but it's good and sweet and something of a guilty pleasure, and can be enjoyed for what it is.
Rating: B-
--
-- Curtis Edmonds blueduck@hsbr.org
Movie Reviews: http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Curtis+Edmonds
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