Reviews

I don't really care if Ferris Bueller is annoying and always gets his way. That can be for entertainment value, if you find these kinds of pranks and villains entertaining. I rewatched this film for Cameron and Jeanie, to see if I remember the treatment of their characters correctly, but it was actually worse. I think Ferris's good intentions and care towards Cameron were his only redeemable quality as a character, but the realization of these intentions of course pretty much cancels that out. The point is not the sports car, the point is that the moment where Cameron seemingly wakes up from his long sleep he actually hands over to Ferris all power to define himself. Ferris has been right all along in refusing to realize Cameron is actually deprressed. This exasperating turn is echoed in the scene where Jeanie is told by a random dude that "she's the problem" and then left fluttering and giggling as the effect of his apparently masterful kisses. This after Jeanie has been victim blamed for being very legitimately scared by an intruder in her house. Ah, this is all so tiring. I read a few analyses of Jeanie where the writer seemed to attribute some sort of underlying feminist critique to Hughes himself. No way. Jeanie was "uptight" so she deserved all that, and the cure was a random guy making out with her. Also Sloane's prediction of her own future is "he's going to marry me", like she needs no say in that. Can't get more misogynistic than this in a feel-good, anti-hero teen movie.

Oh I don't know, I've been pretty short-spanned with movies lately and would have had no trouble switching this off if I hadn't felt at least a bit entertained by the light, ironic storytelling or somewhat interested in some of the characters. Or found some of the cast cute. But I had to suppress a pretty sad shiver of Oh, tacky, in the end. This is supposed to be based on a true story, a teenager's memoir from a mental ward that's aiming at a larger portrait of society, just like Girl, interrupted. I don't know what has happened to the story to make it so implausible. Or so lightweight. Sure a teenager might end up in a psychiatric hospital and it might change his life. But look at the therapeutic artwork: everyone instantly draws in the same unhesitating, even line and out comes a balanced composition, a picture of what is in the mind. Now it's out and life can begin. Now the Egyptian man's out of his room and dancing, I suppose no-one just ever tried old LP's with him before. What kind of person was the girl Noelle, where were the alleged fireworks? It's a mystery to a film layman like me where the 1,5 hours go with films that don't manage to develop their characters. And what about the music therapy session turned into fantasy: was Craig really a great singer and was everyone else great, too? What was so special about this one boy that he turned the hospital upside down? In spite of his superficial clumsiness he just seemed to be able to do anything and connect to anyone. While clearly aiming at promoting a sense of proportion and affirming life, this movie unfortunately seems to nurture some pretty narcissistic adolescent fantasies.

It's curious to see an adaptation that takes away bits of drama and suspense from a novel, instead of adding them. There rather tends to be extra explosions, screams, prolonged farewells and running around mindlessly. Not here. I never expected to see a Jane Eyre without the horrible vision of Bertha in Jane's room and the torn veil, but for some reason this is one of the scenes left out, and it is very telling. The laughter echoing in the corridors is bound to make you uneasy, not scared. The Gothic element is simply missing. And when Jane leaves, she rides a carriage to St John and Mary, whom she's already met, and has no need to wander around the moors without food, dignity or even a name. Nothing dangerous, incredible or hand-of-God-like in all of it.

Still this is not a bad film to watch. I liked Charlotte Gainsbourg as Jane, although I too would have liked to see her eventually show more wit and "warmth" of character, both in the old and the new sense of the word. I still had the feeling it was there, she was a Jane Eyre, she simply didn't have time. Like St John didn't have time to propose or Blanche Ingram to stage the charades, the fortune teller to appear or the triangle of Helen, Miss Taylor and Jane to be played out. Great material for a film, sadly not there. And Rochester... you had to know him to fill in the gaps.

But, I have to say, it was weird to see Anna Paquin and Fiona Shaw in the beginning, as Jane and Aunt Reed, hating each other as much as they did as Sookie Stackhouse and Marnie the necromancer! For that I almost added a star.

Most has been said already that needs to be said about this film. It's really hard to understand the need to rewrite scenes, invent conversations and omit others, move plot elements around and abandon Jane Austen's methods of building tension for something else. This film is not shorter than the 1995 adaptation, nor is Persuasion a very extensive novel. It's not a question of truncating but of completely nonsensical rewriting. If you never read Persuasion you would know nothing of Anne Elliot's character or her relationship with her family, with Lady Russell, with the Crawfords, with the Musgroves, with Mr Elliot or Mrs Smith, after watching this. The fluctuations of hope and bitterness in the minds of the main characters are now smoothed down to an anachronistic and unconvincing linearity: Captain W sorting things out in conversations with his best buddy and Anne hearing the truth about Louisa's engagement and then only waiting for the right moment (and finally running!) while people bump into her. This retains none of Austen's philosophy about character and manners and how people develop and find a balance of ideals and values. I've seen adaptations that do. The question of honor and commitment is an important one in Austen, but when Wenthworth is talking to his friend and reasoning that he apparently now must marry Louisa Musgrove, he really sounds like a time traveler trying to understand the strange ways of the period. I watched this through out of curiosity and it really is enlightening to see just how good the original story is: where you change it, you instantly go wrong. Loosen up, Anne Elliot, you hear them say, forget propriety, forget you are a Jane Austen character... er... ?