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Health & Fitness

Film Review: Kimberly Pierce's Carrie

My review of the latest Carrie remake. Overall, it's got some flaws, mostly in that it ties itself to the 1976 film more than to King's novel, but I very much enjoyed it as a modernized telling of the story in an era when bullying is a hot topic.

My wife and I went to see the remake of Carrie last night. I was fairly impressed with the adaptation. There's a strong argument in why this particular film needed to be remade when the original was such a classic that arguably still holds up to this day, but the truth is, we live in a society where bullying is a very serious concern, and as the primary theme of this story, it's hard to argue against it as a timely remake.

I have little to say by way of introduction--the story is well known to just about everyone at this point, so I'll just dive in.

The Good
The characters are very faithfully portrayed and much of the dialogue is straight, word-for-word from the novel, which impressed me a lot. Many people hold the original Sissy Spacek version as sacred and while it's a classic of the horror genre, I think the remake (notwithstanding the ending) may have been a bit more faithful to the book overall. For one thing, the kids in this one are played by actual teens, so they look like high school kids. For another, the names of certain characters (specifically Miss Desjardin) are restored to those from the book.

The film updates the premise nicely, taking into account modern methods of bullying, such as posting videos to YouTube, without losing the essence of the story. The characters, for the most part, play as real, with one exception that I'll get to later. The performances are very strong, with Julianne Moore being quite chilling as Carrie's psychotic, fanatical mother and Chloe Grace Moretz bringing an earnest and believable nature to Carrie--it's hard not to sympathize with this portrayal. Likewise, Gabriella Wilde and Ansel Elgort are believable as Amy and Tommy.

Another positive about this film--especially in comparison to older adaptations--is that the producers chose to use actual teen actors. The story has a tiny bit more weight than previous adaptations when one looks at Moretz and knows this is, actually, a 17-year-old girl.

The Bad
This film makes a mistake in many ways in that it tries to be a remake of the 76 film rather than a fresh adaptation of the book. As such, it lacks something of the gravitas of the book, though this is also due to the trim, under-100-minute run time. Some things were shoehorned into dialogue that could've been shown better using the book's flashbacks. Though it flies in the face of conventional horror film wisdom, an extra half hour of footage could've improved this film immensely without harming the pacing at all. Personally, I consider Carrie to be a dramatic science fiction story, rather than a horror one, so the super slim run time wasn't really requisite.

As awesome and chilling as Julianne Moore is in the role, we needed more of just how abusive Carrie's mother Margaret was. Moretz is also a bit too pretty to be Carrie. The movie makes a good effort to make the story about the bullying, but something of that even gets lost in the translation. Chris in particular is somewhat caricatured as the loud-mouthed, overbearing spoiled rich girl bully. She and Billy come off as less pure evil than in the book, and elicit more of an eye-quirking, "really?" though the scene at the Prom where Billy warns Chris about the potential consequences of what they're about to do is well-rendered.

The ending wasn't nearly as impactful as the book's ending, but that's Hollywood--they always think they can do it better than the original, and they almost never do. And again, in many ways this is in fact a faithful remake and modernization of the '76 film and not a completely new adaptation--the story and the ending plays out almost identically to the '76 film. Without revealing major spoilers, those who have read the book know that the '76 and '13 film adaptations turn left a bit after the iconic blood-dumping, and the end of the films play out differently than the book does. To date there have been three attempts to film this story, and not one of them gets the ending right--this is the single, fatal flaw in all three.

The ending of King's novel is actually heart-wrenching; the films just don't pull this off. This film in particular was way too light on apocalyptic destruction after the events of Prom Night. There were, in short, far too many survivors.  Finally, the last nod to the book--without getting too spoileriffic, a certain rain of stones--seems to come out of nowhere and will fly right past those who haven't read the novel. It's also in entirely the wrong place and time, and the film may perhaps have been better off without its inclusion.

The Ugly
The film is shot and edited in a very straightforward manner; there's little to pick apart or praise here. The editor handled the material in a competent manner, delivering a very straight-up story without getting too fancy or crazy. In this case, that approach worked, and I applaud an editor who knows when to back off of the fancy and play it straight.

The story is what's paramount in Carrie, not the cinematography. The special effects are serviceable and believable; they look realistic and don't take you out of the movie. The blood, alas, looks a little too much like colored Karo syrup, but you'll have that in films that use a lot of the stuff.

Summary
I enjoyed this film a great deal. I was disappointed in the ending, but it wasn't entirely unexpected given its approach to paying homage to the original 76 film as well as to the book. Overall the material is faithful, but it could've used more focus on just how bad the bullying was over Carrie's entire life. I personally would love to see a director's cut of the movie that was a good half hour longer, with a few flashbacks thrown in. 

Rating: 4 out of 5 kernels

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