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Truth Blinds; Imagination Enhances
By bukkhead | July 9, 2007
FILM REVIEW: ‘BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA’
Written by Jeff Stockwell and David Paterson, based on the novel by Katherine Paterson
Directed by Gabor Csupo
Rated PG
95 mins.
Bridge to Terabithia is based on a children’s novel of the same name, written in 1977, or based on a made-for-TV adaption from 1985. Take your pick, doesn’t matter, since neither the 70s, nor the 80s, nor even the noughts make any kind of relevant showing in the latest film version. The film stands alone, and it might even be different enough that you’ll want to read the book. Gone are the complications in the relationship Jesse has with his father and sisters. Gone too are most of the discussions on religion, save for a few short scenes that don’t impact the plot too much.
In fact, there isn’t really much of a plot to this movie, probably purposefully. This is a movie about imagination, about how imagination can be a sanctuary, as well as guide to facing the real world. Director Gabor Csupo does provide some visual fantasy elements to assist the viewer, but for the most part, one is required to use one’s imagination almost as much as Jesse and Leslie. Rather than merely see things as children see them, the viewer is asked to be a child again, to believe in the magic of the imagination, which can be more powerful than the dull conflicts of our work-a-day existence.
Jesse is a junior-high school kid with no friends, four sisters, and a passion for running and drawing. Leslie is the new girl at school, his neighbor, the only child of two writers. They deal with the usual staples of a junior-high-school life: unimaginative teachers, bullies, arbitrary authority figures. Again, Csupo doesn’t want to spoil your imagination by adding a lot if nuance and overly clever elements to the film. There’s nothing here you haven’t seen, experienced, or even been yourself before.
In it’s own way, given the harsh, indifferent world that Jesse and Leslie inhabit outside their imagination, Bridge to Terabithia is almost an introduction to existentialism (post Myth-of-Sysaphus existentialism). And I don’t want to give away too much, but by the film’s end, Leslie becomes less a character and more a catalyst for Jesse’s evolution. Note that I did not say “coming of age,” but “evolution.” By the film’s end (and I am guessing the book’s end), Jesse learns that desire is nothing without imagination, and imagination can help you love what you already have.
Josh Hutcherson is fine as Jesse, though I’d give credit for that to Csupo. AnnaSophia Robb is a bit thin, but again, I think this is purposeful, as the character is less a person and more a force in this movie. Playing Jesse’s little sister May Belle, Bailee Madison nearly steals her scenes through sheer cuteness. And Robert Patrick as Jesse’s father has come a long way since Terminator 2, while Zooey Deschenel plays Miss Edmunds, the teacher Jesse has a crush on. And making an extended cameo is the New Zealand countryside, where a majority of the movie was filmed (apparently, even our imagination can’t transcend the real West Virginia).
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