Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

Magic Kingdom

I never read Katherine Paterson’s Bridge to Terabithia but judging from the movie adaptation, it seemed like a book worth treasuring. This is a fine family movie. I prefer this over the movie “The Chronicles of Narnia” - it is so much relatable and much more useful for children. While both worlds are about kids who enter a new world, “Bridge to Terabithia” is not entirely separate from reality. Here is a film informing children that fantasy does not simply happen in books or movies. It is a great message for a growing generation, fed in visual images instead of creating ones on their own.

The movie is about a boy named Jess Aarons (Josh Hutcherson). His life is anything but exciting. At home, the family is barely getting by on a tight budget. At school, his classmates tease him. Then, one day, a spirited new classmate enters his mundane world. Her name is Leslie and she just happens to live in close proximity. Pretty soon, Jess and Leslie become best pals. After school, they play in a nearby forest and pretend they are in a magic kingdom called Terabithia. This is their secret place, a haven from all the troubles from home and school.

“Bridge to Terabithia” is intriguing to watch since the plot works in different layers. Terabithia is not just a magic place created out of nowhere. The kids’ reality very much influences the imagined sanctuary. For example, the squirrels and the giant troll they fight in Terabithia are representation of the taunting bullies in school. It makes the fantasy part of the film more meaningful. Terabithia is simply another way of seeing or dealing with reality.

Josh Hutcherson, who was wonderful in “Little Manhattan,” is proving to be a child actor of value. His character Jess immediately drew me in; perhaps it was the doing of his genuinely sad eyes. The actress who play Leslie, AnnaSophia Robb, is pretty good too. As a contrast to the cheerless Jess, she is a bottle of joy, full of light. She is constantly happy - without being annoyingly perky. This is like the kind of roles Kirsten Dunst would play if she were younger.

Without these two talented kids, the movie would not have worked so well. The strength of the movie depends on how much we truly care for them and how much we are convinced of their strong bond. Hutcherson and Robb do their jobs well and they do so with subtlety. By the time the movie arrives at its third act, you might not know what hits you. Like most great films, “Bridge to Terabithia” has an undeniable power to move a viewer in a deep, poignant manner. Its prescription is to keep a healthy dose of imagination to fight instances when reality can be dangerously unimaginable.

Grade: A-

CAST Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Patrick, Bailee Madison, and Lauren Clinton Based on the novel by Katherine Paterson Screenplay by Jeff Stockwell David Paterson Directed by Gabor Csupo Rated PG for thematic elements including bullying, some peril and mild language

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Away From Her (2007)

Intimate Strangers

Do you remember the first time being absent-minded? I don’t think I do. But once in a while, my brain is so cluttered I would completely lost track of what I am doing. As an example, I would go down the basement and I would forget what I came down to get. So I have to go back up, retrace my steps and search for the source that made me descend in the first place. These momentary feelings of loss are what surfaced while I was watching “Away from Her.” And I thought of what it must be like to constantly forget. It must be frustrating.

In the film, an old woman named Fiona (Julie Christie) exhibits early signs of Alzheimer’s. She puts the frying pan in the freezer. Then, she attaches post-it labels on the kitchen drawers. She forgets how “wine” is pronounced. Eventually, her memory fails her so badly that she could not find her way home. Her ever-patient husband Grant (Gordon Pinsent) continues to care for her and nourish her depleting memory. But as her condition worsens, she must enter a local care facility named Meadowlake. Grant finds the place agreeable, well-furnished, and ran by a helpful staff. The only drawback (and it’s a big one) is Meadowlake’s strict policy of no visitors in the first thirty days. Grant finds it difficult to leave her, or to borrow the movie’s title, to be away from her. What if she doesn’t recognize him after a month of his absence? What if he becomes a stranger?

While I have liked movies which employ memory loss as a story gimmick (Memento, First 50 Dates, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Bourne Identity, etc.), it’s about time a movie illuminates the affliction in a realistic manner. As the Alzheimer’s victim Fiona, Julie Christie is, in a word, superb. The foremost thing you notice about her is that she’s delightfully fetching. Actresses half or even quart of her age can rarely match the genuine charisma she displays. But what makes her performance so good is that she doesn’t resort to blank stares of ambivalence. There’s always life behind her eyes. You can always sense Fiona thinking and talking like she knows what she’s talking about. As Fiona’s husband, Gordon Pinsent brings a quiet but emotional anguish to the role. It’s heartbreaking to see Grant play along with Fiona, even when it is painful to do so. He might not be stricken with the disease, but he’s the one who suffers the most.

Despite the sad subject matter, it is to Sarah Polley’s credit that the film is neither a bleak downer nor a gushy tearjerker. In her directorial debut, the actress-turned-filmmaker has learned well from her mentor, the Canadian auteur Atom Egoyan. Indeed, her approach to “Away From Her” reminded me of Egoyan’s masterpiece “The Sweet Hereafter.” The parallel storylines, the metaphorical passages, the soft fade transitions, and the formidable Canadian landscapes are used to great effect on both films. In “Away from Her,” I liked that white, and not black, is chosen as the film’s dominant color. This seems to suggest that memory loss is more about having a clean slate than being in complete darkness. Yeah, I like that idea. Memory doesn’t really make us who are anyway. We are what we are without it. Remember that.

Grade: A-

CAST Julie Christie, Gordon Pinsent, Olympia Dukakis, Kristen Thomson, Wendy Crewson, Michael Murphy, Alberta Watson, Thomas Hauff, and Katie Boland Based on the short story "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" by Alice Munro Screenplay by Sarah Polley Directed by Sarah Polley Not Rated

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