Another King adaptation, right in time for the creepiest season of the year. Netflix has been doing decently with those, but the operating word there is decently. With both King and son of King’s adaptations, that is. From the disappointingly teeny Locke and Key to the middling In The Tall Grass and other things I’m not thinking off right now.
This one is right on the money in that it is technically well done, well acted, and well meant. The later denotes a certain sincerity of tone and faithfulness to the source material done primarily through heavy voiceovers. I mean, you do feel like you’re watching an adaptation of a story; it has that tone, it has that mood. Which isn’t a terrible thing because as far as storytelling go, you can’t go wrong with King. And so, in this adaptation, a screenwriter/director with a serial killer style three name moniker and a thoroughly mediocre yet productive career, brings back King’s own young Bill Denbrough from the recent IT remakes as a wide eye good as it gets sort of kid gets some…unique opportunities. First one being: after a chance meeting in church, he gets to read books out loud to the local billionaire, played by the always great Donald Sutherland. Second, he gets a sizeable inheritance. Third, he gets a phone line seemingly connecting him to the dead so that he can exact vengeance on those he believes deserve it. Let the crisis of conscious begin. Except that no, not really, this isn’t that nuanced of a production. It also isn’t anywhere as creepy and unsettling as its source material, King’s novella If It Bleeds. I mean you can tell right by the title. If It Bleeds is an awesome title, it’s original and evocative. What the movie ended up with is merely…descriptive. This movie also takes its time and makes you question whether a cinematic adaptation should ever take longer than the reading of the original story might. But overall, it’s fine. It’s perfectly decent and that seems to be the bar the adaptor/director was trying to clear. And, although nice isn’t normally a word one might describe King’s work, this movie is quite thoroughly nice. Though definitely, definitely and seemingly deliberately more of a drama than something scary, with scary elements studiously downplayed and dramatics turned up. The message here seems to be the danger of mobile phones. King has, in fact, done this before. It took an entire novel and resulted in a really crappy Cusack/Jackson adaptation, so, technically, this is an improvement on all accounts. And yes, phones are garbage, addictive and dumbing down, but where would we be without them? Still, if you want a reminder of just how unnatural it is to have that sort of connectivity to the world (this side and beyond), there’s this movie to remind you. Ta-da.
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