This is not a good film. The script is a loose adaptation of the novel with much dialogue that is too direct in stating themes and purposes; nothing is left to implication. This might make it useful for showing in high school classrooms but makes it a tedious business for intelligent viewers.
Because there is no framework here of older Gene returning to Devon, a title announces that it is February 1943. And to grab viewers' attention, the film begins with a scene of black robed and hooded boys bursting into Finny and Gene's room, with Brinker telling his cohorts to haul out Finny and Gene. Then another title tells us we're flashing back to "Seven Months Earlier." Gene is arriving for the first time at Devon from his home in the South.
In a too-explicit expository voice-over, Gene makes it clear that he's not one of the wealthy boys whose families have attended Devon for generations but just an average guy from a middle-class background. Nevertheless, he is glad to have this opportunity to be a student at the school.
The boys are immediately plunged into a blitzball game without explanation as to what this is, and then they are running off to jump from the tree at the edge of the river. This is all too quick. The film needs to introduce the characters, build up the characters and their relationships to each other, and then move into the plot events. Because this isn't done here, the characters remain two dimensional, not people I could become involved with and care about. Thus, the film can register no impact; it didn't draw me in.
Toby Moore is totally miscast as Finny. He towers over the other boys, has a 21st century gym-buffed body, and doesn't project a whiff of charisma. He was 26 when the film was shot and is too old for the part. Finny comes across here as a damned pest who is constantly keeping Gene from studying. One wonders why Gene doesn't simply tell Finny to f*** off. For "A Separate Peace" to work, Finny must have charisma, magnetism, innocence, a quality that makes him irresistible to others, even when he's cajoling them to do something they don't want to. If one doesn't warm to Finny, there is no film.
J. Carton plays Gene, who was directed to give the role a heavy Southern accent, which comes and goes throughout the film. When it's present, it's an annoyance. Other than that, Gene is simply a generic preppy here.
Brinker has had all his rough edges smoothed to become a vanilla blah. And Leper is now just an odd student whom the others treat as if he were the dorm mascot. In one horrendous scene, Leper actually impersonates Hitler and comes along with Brinker into Finny and Gene's room to do a little dance. And Quackenbush has simply disappeared altogether.
The film has a bad score which uses no period music that was so necessary to building up atmosphere in the '72 version. Instead, at one point, we get "Hold that Tiger," which must go back to the 20s at least.
The very important scene between Gene and Finny at the beach is treated inconsequently. The dialogue has been changed from the novel so that Finny says quickly to Gene that it's important to be at the beach "with your best buddy." Finny doesn't add, "Which is what you are." And there's no indication that Gene wants to reply to Finny in kind. The very core of the novel is tossed aside here.
When Gene and Finny climb the tree for the fateful jump, Gene is photographed to look like a devil glowering from under his heavy brows at Finny. And here there is no ambiguity about Gene's jouncing the limb; we see him do it. And since I'd not been drawn into Gene's character any more than I'd been drawn into Finny's, I couldn't care much for what Gene did or what happened to Finny.
When Gene goes to see Finny in the hospital after the fall, Finny is far too hale and healthy, not like someone who's just had a serious accident and had his leg set and put into a cast.
There is a scene here where the students go apple picking in nearby orchards because the usual harvesters are off at war. In this scene, the farmer who owns the orchard tells the boys that his son was killed in the war and that he recently buried him in the orchard under his favorite apple tree. He gives his son's army cap to Leper. This scene makes explicit the implications that are in the much finer scene of the '72 version where the boys are shoveling snow off the railroad tracks and face the young soldiers in the train, who are a mirror for their future.
The best moment in this dismal remake occurs when Gene spots Leper on campus and follows him to his makeshift hideout in the woods. In this scene, Danny Swerdlow as Leper actually has some decent dialogue and a situation to act out, and he does a fine job of it. It was the only scene in the film to register some feeling and begin to draw me in.
The film trickles off after Finny's death. Gene is enlisting, and Brinker, if you can believe this, is going off into the woods wearing Leper's old cap hoping to find the beaver damn that Leper was earlier looking for in the winter. Gene has a voice-over at the end that mouths platitudes like, "Just be yourself; just go on." My God! Is that the best this film can offer? This pallid film version reflects attenuation of the book and isn't going to build enthusiasm for the book or reveal what makes the novel such a fine one.
Because there is no framework here of older Gene returning to Devon, a title announces that it is February 1943. And to grab viewers' attention, the film begins with a scene of black robed and hooded boys bursting into Finny and Gene's room, with Brinker telling his cohorts to haul out Finny and Gene. Then another title tells us we're flashing back to "Seven Months Earlier." Gene is arriving for the first time at Devon from his home in the South.
In a too-explicit expository voice-over, Gene makes it clear that he's not one of the wealthy boys whose families have attended Devon for generations but just an average guy from a middle-class background. Nevertheless, he is glad to have this opportunity to be a student at the school.
The boys are immediately plunged into a blitzball game without explanation as to what this is, and then they are running off to jump from the tree at the edge of the river. This is all too quick. The film needs to introduce the characters, build up the characters and their relationships to each other, and then move into the plot events. Because this isn't done here, the characters remain two dimensional, not people I could become involved with and care about. Thus, the film can register no impact; it didn't draw me in.
Toby Moore is totally miscast as Finny. He towers over the other boys, has a 21st century gym-buffed body, and doesn't project a whiff of charisma. He was 26 when the film was shot and is too old for the part. Finny comes across here as a damned pest who is constantly keeping Gene from studying. One wonders why Gene doesn't simply tell Finny to f*** off. For "A Separate Peace" to work, Finny must have charisma, magnetism, innocence, a quality that makes him irresistible to others, even when he's cajoling them to do something they don't want to. If one doesn't warm to Finny, there is no film.
J. Carton plays Gene, who was directed to give the role a heavy Southern accent, which comes and goes throughout the film. When it's present, it's an annoyance. Other than that, Gene is simply a generic preppy here.
Brinker has had all his rough edges smoothed to become a vanilla blah. And Leper is now just an odd student whom the others treat as if he were the dorm mascot. In one horrendous scene, Leper actually impersonates Hitler and comes along with Brinker into Finny and Gene's room to do a little dance. And Quackenbush has simply disappeared altogether.
The film has a bad score which uses no period music that was so necessary to building up atmosphere in the '72 version. Instead, at one point, we get "Hold that Tiger," which must go back to the 20s at least.
The very important scene between Gene and Finny at the beach is treated inconsequently. The dialogue has been changed from the novel so that Finny says quickly to Gene that it's important to be at the beach "with your best buddy." Finny doesn't add, "Which is what you are." And there's no indication that Gene wants to reply to Finny in kind. The very core of the novel is tossed aside here.
When Gene and Finny climb the tree for the fateful jump, Gene is photographed to look like a devil glowering from under his heavy brows at Finny. And here there is no ambiguity about Gene's jouncing the limb; we see him do it. And since I'd not been drawn into Gene's character any more than I'd been drawn into Finny's, I couldn't care much for what Gene did or what happened to Finny.
When Gene goes to see Finny in the hospital after the fall, Finny is far too hale and healthy, not like someone who's just had a serious accident and had his leg set and put into a cast.
There is a scene here where the students go apple picking in nearby orchards because the usual harvesters are off at war. In this scene, the farmer who owns the orchard tells the boys that his son was killed in the war and that he recently buried him in the orchard under his favorite apple tree. He gives his son's army cap to Leper. This scene makes explicit the implications that are in the much finer scene of the '72 version where the boys are shoveling snow off the railroad tracks and face the young soldiers in the train, who are a mirror for their future.
The best moment in this dismal remake occurs when Gene spots Leper on campus and follows him to his makeshift hideout in the woods. In this scene, Danny Swerdlow as Leper actually has some decent dialogue and a situation to act out, and he does a fine job of it. It was the only scene in the film to register some feeling and begin to draw me in.
The film trickles off after Finny's death. Gene is enlisting, and Brinker, if you can believe this, is going off into the woods wearing Leper's old cap hoping to find the beaver damn that Leper was earlier looking for in the winter. Gene has a voice-over at the end that mouths platitudes like, "Just be yourself; just go on." My God! Is that the best this film can offer? This pallid film version reflects attenuation of the book and isn't going to build enthusiasm for the book or reveal what makes the novel such a fine one.