THE SCARLET LETTER
A film review by Ben Hoffman
Copyright 1995 Ben Hoffman
It takes a lot of chutzpah (nerve) to take a classic book and change the story around, including the ending. Hawthorne, wherever he is, must be seething. Hollywood has done it again. If you read the book you will not believe the ending that was slapped onto the film. Should anyone care, the screenplay was written by Douglas Day Stewart, produced and directed by Roland Joff.
If you read the book, beautifully written, many years ago, you may want a refresher. It takes place in the early 1700s when the Puritans in Massachusetts ruled the colony with a strictness that took any joy out of life. As well, superstition and witches were prevalent. The story opens with a description of the Boston prison, the women parishioners, in particular, outside the prison, a mean and vindictive lot, who are angry at the light sentence given Hester Prynne (Demi Moore), in the jail for adultery. After months of imprisonment she is sentenced to wear the scarlet letter "A" for the rest of her life so everyone would know her as an adulteress, a pregnant adulteress who would not name the father of the child she was bearing.
How she bears her punishment, how she earns her living are described in the book but not in the film. Many are the omissions and changes made to Hawthorne's story. Despite a mostly fine cast, (Gary Oldman as Arthur Dimmesdale, the best-liked preacher, Robert Duvall as Hester's husband, Robert Prosky as one of the ministers, Joan Plowright as an independent and fearless woman destined to be accused of being a witch) the film does not begin to come near the excellence of the book.
Hester looks like the Demi Moore we know, right down to the shower in the nude, to a replica of the famous Vanity Fair cover where she posed with her huge belly and navel. None of that was necessary. Hester's daughter, Pearl, eventually age seven, who in the book is an important character is here relegated to being about three-years-old and except that a birthmark "proves" she is a witch, she is not anyone of note in the film.
But it is the "cowboys and Indians" type of ending that was chosen as the film's laughable ending that put the final stamp of mediocrity on this version of THE SCARLET LETTER.
2 Bytes
4 Bytes = Superb
3 Bytes = Too good to be missed.
2 Bytes = So so.
1 Byte = Save your money.
-- Ben Hoffman
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