Possible spoilers . . . not that any amount of info could’ve spoiled it for me, and it’s hard not to talk about the movie without talking about the ending.

I guess the first place to start on this is with the fears that come with any adaptation of a “treasured children’s classic”. I personally haven’t read the book, yes I’m ashamed, and though the title rang a bell when I first heard about the movie last year, that was barely a ring at all. But, having done a little homework online, I’d gotten the gist of the thing and had begun to fear like many long-time fans of the story, especially after viewing the trailer, that the imaginary world Leslie and Jesse create would be sort of spoiled by the full-on Weta Digital treatment – as the movie began, the sketchy animations in the opening credits were mesmerising enough for me.

The first thing to mention is how slow the movie is to actually get to Terabithia itself – but like so many things that could be seen as a bad thing in this movie, I’m quick to say, this is slow starting in the best way possible. When the visuals of the kids’ imaginary world do finally start to creep in, the movie I was most reminded was, funnily enough considering the Weta connection, a Peter Jackson film, the otherwise entirely different Heavenly Creatures – AnnaSophia Robb even sounds strangely like Kate Winslet’s Juliet as she tells Jesse, asked which desk belongs to the school bully, “It’s the one with dried up blood and dusty old bones,” – but the fantasy elements here are even more subtle than those in that movie.

That grand money shot you see in the trailer which looks like the Ewok celebration at the end of the updated Return of the Jedi is exactly that, a one-off in contrast to the rest of the movie – it’s the furthest the visuals go, it occurs right at the end of the movie, lasts barely longer than it does in the trailer, and up until then it’s even more subtle than I could have imagined. Even at that climactic point, the overindulgence makes sense to me, for at that moment we’re seeing it predominantly through the eyes of the youngest person in the movie, Jesse’s little sister; that is, the largest imagination . . . of course it’s gonna be more fantastic to a 6 year old.

Of course, doing my homework online brought one drawback, and that was getting rather large hints at the sad ending to the story. Had I not known this was coming, I think I’d have died myself, because the movie changes tone at the one hour mark so sharply and dramatically it makes last year’s Charlotte’s Web look like, well, the death of a barn-bound spider . . . Parents of very little ones should definitely be warned. Even knowing it was coming, I had tears in my eyes for the full final act. People sold on the Narnia / Lord of the Rings – like trailer will almost certainly be turned off by this emotional closing down of the movie and I worry that Disney may have really screwed up the reception this movie will get by using that shot in the trailer and generally making it look far more in your face about its fantasy than it really turns out to be. There again, maybe they’re going for the pleasant surprise angle – it certainly worked on me.

At times the movie reminded me of another personal fave, Now and Then – it has all the hallmarks of the “that special summer” type nostalgia movie and that story, too, touched on tougher themes of childhood like death and the broken family like few movies actually aimed at young people do. But then my mum mentioned My Girl. Of course. It hadn’t even occurred to me, but that’s the movie this one most resembles, again in the best way possible. In fact, the only palpable thing I can think of that separates these two movies is that rather than ride around on their bikes all day like Thomas J. and Vada, Jesse and Leslie run around in the woods in their backyard. BTW, I know that the Terabithia book came first, before someone points that out; and BTW, doesn’t matter, these two movies are equal in my mind, both absolute must-see children’s masterpieces to watch over and over, in this one’s case, in particular, whenever you feel you’re not keeping your mind wide open enough.

In the end, the movie is about every kind of young love you can imagine – there’s the crush love between Jesse and his free-spirited art-loving example of a music teacher (Zooey Deschanel made only slightly frumpy enough to pass in such a role, still cute as ever if not moreso – basically the female version of My Girl’s Mr. Bixler); the awkward familial hate-love between him and his father and his over-enthusiastic little sister; the almost primal human bond that happens between the bully and the bullied when AnnaSophia is forced to go and talk to the 8th grade giant after hearing her crying in the girls’ bathroom over her father hitting her at home; and the genuine, ill-fated love that grows between Jesse and Leslie, love that’s only ever actually spoken of – though it’s visible from the start in every frame and every glance between the pair – too late when her father tells him in the fewest words at her wake, “She loved you.”

The performances across the board – from the lead teens AnnaSophia (who to my surprise just gets better with every movie she makes, and she’s so genuine at times here it makes my heart burst) and Josh Hutcherson to Bailee Madison as the little sister to Deschanel and Robert Patrick supporting, even the bully girl at school and all the kids on the periphery – are nothing short of spectacular.

It’s gonna take a lot to beat this one for me this year, I think, especially when I get to repeat viewings on DVD. I’ll be getting the book to read ASAP, and hopefully tracking down the 1985 TV version. The one big problem? AnnaSophia’s song doesn’t get played prominently enough to get an Oscar nomination! lol It’ll be on my “Best of 2007 Part One” playlist anyway.

Wow, you’ve gotta believe I love a movie when I pull my finger out long enough to write this much about it lol.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 25th, 2007 at 9:37 pm in 5 hearts, Movie Reviews and tagged as cuties, fantasy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.