APT PUPIL *** (out of four) -a review by Bill Chambers (wchamber@netcom.ca)
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starring Brad Renfro, Ian McKellan, Elias Koteas, David Schwimmer screenplay by Brandon Boyce, based on the novella by Stephen King directed by Bryan Singer
"No man is an island," one character quotes John Donne in APT PUPIL, effectively summarizing the movie's themes. While hardly a great film, Singer's ambitious adaptation of King's short story* is challenging nonetheless; perhaps the most shocking aspect of this inclement psychological thriller is that a major studio got behind it. APT PUPIL is a bleak picture destined to be misunderstood by the masses.
1984. Wonder-bred high school honours student Todd Bowden (Renfro) conducts his own extracurricular investigation of Kurt Dussander, a Nazi war criminal who fearfully fled Berlin in the 1960s and was never heard from again. Bowden suspects Arthur Denker (McKellan), the lonely German senior citizen who lives nearby, is actually a pseudonymous Dussander-much research and dusting for fingerprints proves young Todd's theory. Bowden strikes a deal with Dussander: in exchange for not revealing his identity, Dussander must satisfy Bowden's intense curiosity by recounting the atrocities of the holocaust from the Nazi point of view. The stories he hears keep Todd up at night and haunt his daydreams, but like a bystander at a traffic accident, Todd's desire for gory details overrides his repulsion.
Bowden revives in Dussander feelings dormant since the end of WWII. Marching in a mock uniform around his kitchen is wholly cathartic for Dussander: it leads to his torture of a cat and the torment of his "student", among other things. Bowden, who has taken on very hateful qualities (he kills birds and doodles swastikas on his notebook), engages the veteran in an endless game of one-upmanship. Dussander stands to lose his freedom, and Bowden his credibility-in effect, his post-secondary school future. All of this winds down to a fairly unpredictable (and unsettling) conclusion, one which requires leaps of faith from its audience yet is more satisfying than the source material's excessive climax.
Singer has yet to get Keyser Söze out of his system. His The Usual Suspects and APT PUPIL are both about evil masquerading as innocence (Verbal's tics and Todd's golden-boy reputation are plausible ruses); they showcase morally bankrupt anti-heroes to whom telling the truth is not an option if they are to achieve their goals. APT PUPIL is a richer film than The Usual Suspects, a movie famous and popular partly because its plot machinations were not germane to the outcome-there was no way you could see the ending coming, as it was all a hoodwink, anyway. Thankfully, Singer has gotten most of The Usual Suspects' film-schoolish geek theatrics out of his system. Some scenes in APT PUPIL feel overdirected and/or obvious (the dream sequences were extraneous), but the majority of the film is subdued-and Singer's handling of the violent scenes is boldly restrained for a film about a murderer and a murderer-in-training. McKellan's and Renfro's performances contribute enormously to the overall success of the film; while most people will focus on British stage vet McKellan's finely-tuned realization, I'd like to single out Renfro's daring work. He isn't afraid to play someone largely unappealing and cold-hearted; he strips his character of vanity, something many of his peers wouldn't do. (Can you picture Kieran Culkin or Jonathan Taylor-Thomas in the same role?) Renfro was recently charged with possession of cocaine-I hope he doesn't continue down that path, because he has a big future in good movies waiting for him.
As guidance counsellor Edward French, "Friend" Schwimmer also deserves mention. He wants to be the parent to Todd that Todd's own well-to-do folks are not (Todd, like most modern kids-and only-children-has mom and dad wrapped around his pinky finger), and his sincerity makes the apt pupil's blackening-heart even more apparent. But one of the film's ultimate questions, are we born evil or do we learn evil?, might be answered in French, whose motives are the slightest bit ambiguous. No man is an island, indeed-we all have the capacity to make the "right" or the "wrong" choices. Schwimmer winningly plays one of a trio of fascinating characters who make the unconventional APT PUPIL laudible.
-October, 1998
*The excellent collection King's stories called Different Seasons spawned not only Apt Pupil, but The Shawshank Redemption (originally titled Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption) and Stand By Me (originally titled The Body).
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