“We take to the breeze! We go as we please!”

Yeh … in that older review I had a severe case of the rambles, hehe. But I think I know what I was saying. I finally just actually got this on DVD since it came down to the price I was willing to pay for it since I thought it didn’t have too many extras on it, but actually they’re just not well-detailed on the packaging. There are actually two commentaries (not listened to yet) and almost an hour of other behind-the-scenes stuff featuring lots and lots of Dakota being her incredible self I would totally have paid double what I ultimately paid had I known this (yes I could easily have found out online; I just didn’t )

As to the movie – as below, there are parts that I still find unnecessary … like just watching the behind-the-scenes stuff beforehand, I was cringing because I’d forgotten all the little crowd-pleasing modernisations and stuff. I don’t broadly object to such a thing, don’t get me wrong; but y’know, there’s just a right and a wrong way to do it, and here it every so often comes across as purely crowd-pleasing and nothing more (not to say, I’ve gotta admit, that it didn’t even please me more on this viewing than the last …).

But most of my objections to the movie that first time really only stemmed from the fact it was the first time – because I really didn’t know the full story. Yeh, sue me, I’ve still not read the book even despite buying the tie-in edition with beautiful Dakota on the cover over a year ago lol. Anyway, I had none of my problems with Dakota’s portrayal of Fern this time around. Like I said before, I’d just assumed the character was younger – like physically and mentally – when I first heard of the story.

I guess it’s also a mark of how good the movie is – and I’m amazed I only just noticed this, I’m guessing it’s ‘cos whenever Dakota’s concerned I tend to put myself squarely in her shoes without a second thought – that I don’t mind the multitude of stereotypical clumsy, dumb, or generally boyish males that are in the story; at least, that’s the way it’s done here. I guess this also breezes past me because of the 50s Americana look and feel of the whole thing that if anything makes it more ‘acceptable’. For what it’s worth from someone like me, I think the whole gender thing, even like Fern’s slight tomboyishness developing into a full-fledged desire to wear the yellow dress and be with boys, is perfectly beautiful here.

I guess one thing I would say – and I’m about to babble about innocence again so be warned – is about the U certificate in the UK. I was aware I was taking a risk in watching this while still pretty wracked by the depression Enchanted left me with, ‘cos the whole “Fern growing up” thread will always upset me more than anything in the movie: not, I stress, in the same way as Enchanted did … I find the whole process of little girls growing up just as beautiful as I find it sad; but, like, I don’t know, I don’t know how to finish that thought but to say the sadness kind of always prevails for me.

Anyway, my mum commented during the movie about the “mild language” that’s referred to in the only comment on the BBFC’s official info on the movie. But that doesn’t bother me, ‘cos it’s truly mild, so mild I wouldn’t even have noticed if it weren’t pointed out. What bothers me is: U is meant to mean “anybody over 4” – and if I had a very young child and took them to see this (okay, I know I should’ve read the book or whatever beforehand but still – it’s what ‘U’ means that I’m talking about), I’d be pretty freaked by simply the father pulling out the axe so early in the movie, and the constant referral to what we do to pigs and other animals, not to mention the frank talk of death, throughout the movie.

I know: it’s the truth, and I know, they’re “just animals”. And I know some people would like if we just forgot about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and things like that and admitted that our line between imaginary creations and lies is pretty disturbing (something touched on beautifully, of course, by the movie Galaxy Quest) and that we should just confront our babies with reality from the off for the better – I get that argument, I promise. But I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with shielding very young children from this kind of thing. Innocence, or even its simple cousin naivety – believing in a stupid thing like Santa or just plain having a bacon sandwich without thinking of where it came from and just of how delicious it is – is something beautiful even grownups are capable of enjoying from time to time. You can turn off the bullsh*t and be a kid again; but, and this is the important part, only if you were one once. It’s a minor thing in this movie, and what I say here might’ve been better said in my already overlong review of Enchanted, which crosses the line for me a lot worse than this one. I guess to me it’s more a matter of consistency than anything else. Like I said, it’s a beautiful movie – nowhere near as depressing as Enchanted – but I would really think twice before letting very young children watch it … Babe is a safer bet.

January 24th 2007:

SPOILERS HEREIN, not to mention rambling, plus if I’ve read the book I don’t remember it so if I say anything stupid like blaming/crediting the movie for/with something that’s in the book, don’t yell at me, I’ll correct it next time around. In other words, don’t read this if you aren’t forgiving, I’d half the mind to save this until I’d read the book and seen the movie a second time but I’ve been doing pretty good writing about every movie I’ve seen recently and I don’t want to break the flow.

I wanted to love this so much, and honestly not just because of Dakota Fanning, about whom I’ve said more than enough elsewhere. Though I haven’t read the book (or don’t remember it, which seems unlikely), I was familiar with the story, and there was just something about that story being given the Walden Media treatment, now, with Dakota, with Danny Elfman music, just, everything … I was just really excited to see this movie – honestly, over the past few months I actually began to think it might be even another Casper for me … but as the first 20 minutes went by, my heart just sank and sank.

First it was Dakota. As much as I love her – even after what I’ll say later – I still have to say, she’s too old for this role, not just in mind as she always has been, but now in body too, she just really does not look right. She delivers her lines in that soulful old soul way that’s served her infallibly in the past but is just not right in this storybook world, and it is a storybook world, moreso than I expected, and that’s another thing it took me too long to adjust to. Then the animals spoke, and over a decade since Babe, I wonder, how have the visual effects gotten worse? Does Charlotte really need to have such a stupidly obvious face?

BUT, and that BUT couldn’t be bigger, makes me wish I had the guts to podcast so I could do a microphone popping Mark Kermode-ish plosive, LOL – SOMEHOW, and I can only put it down to the strength of the story, it eventually all falls into place. Fern is an older character than I initially thought – and though I still think Dakota is not right for this movie, I’ll admit, the “oh dear, she’s with a boy” scenes work amazingly well, really giving (to me, at least) the heartbreaky feeling dads probably get everyday, that “she’s not a little girl anymore,”-ness and most heartbreakingly when you realise, and it’s done so subtly, that like most of the baby spiders at the end, she too will leave Wilbur behind, not unlike Emily left Jessie in Toy Story 2 (stupid comparison, but I’ll admit, I’m really reaching for ways to put my feelings on this movie into words, lol), emphasising even more how important his true friends in the barn will be, and how it’s like the spiders who stick around that count, not that those just passing through can’t be as important. God, I hate when a kids’ movie makes me feel like I should’ve learned something when I was like 6 lol.

And then there’s Julia Roberts. If the following sounds stupid to you you can just leave, lol. I don’t like Julia Roberts, in fact on bad days I’d make a rare use of the word hate. Almost all her movies annoy me in some way or another. But second only to Hook (wow, don’t read that review, it must’ve been a bad day), this is my all-time favourite performance of hers. Her voice at the end as Charlotte is dying immediately opens the tear ducts, it’s just some of the most incredible voice work I’ve ever heard.

I don’t know if I’m overrating this with 4 stars … I don’t think I can be when there were those 20 minutes where I really began to hate it and it still managed to pull me back as hard as it did. When it comes to animal/little girl movies, give me Fly Away Home, give me Because of Winn-Dixie, heck give me Dakota in Dreamer, or the Velvet movies, long before I come to this. I’ve already said in at least one of those reviews how much I love this combo anyway, so obviously I’m biased here to begin with. But I have a feeling this one will grow on me with extra viewings. All the subtle stuff with Fern “growing up” really touched me and was the last thing I was expecting in this movie. Time will really have to tell on this one. I’ll definitely be buying the DVD.