Although I don't think it quite pulled off the weighty social
commentary it seemed to shoot for (pun intended, of course),
I really enjoyed the movie, A History of Violence. In fact, I
thought it was better than the graphic novel it was based
upon.
I re-read the book a week or so before seeing the movie. I
enjoyed it, as I had when I read it when it first came out,
and thought it would make a great movie. I like Cronenberg
and looked forward to seeing what he'd do with a more
naturalistic/realistic story (no bugs).
The film made some interesting changes. The first half was
roughly the same as the book's first third, although it went
deeper into character and the effect of the violence and its
aftermath upon them, especially the son, who really wasn't
much more than a child to be protected in the book. I was
especially impressed with Maria Bello's expanded role as the
wife finding out she may not know her longtime husband nearly
as well as she thought.
The movie pretty much jettisoned the second, flashback, third
of the book, only hinting at a very different backstory, with
relatively innocent characters becoming far less pure. The
second half of the movie was almost entirely different. This
is the section that tries to raise some big questions about
viewers finding violence cathartic and whether or not people
(especially once bad people) can be redeemed or whether we
ultimately revert to our "true" characters. As I said, I
don't feel the film quite carries off the weighty ideas it
raises (the later violence isn't quite as hard to cheer as
they seem to intend it to be), but I give it big points for
raising them. More importantly, the message never gets in the
way of a good story.
Mark
ps -- also interesting that they change the gangsters names
from being Italian, and they're from Philadelphia, not
Brooklyn.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 10 Oct 2005 EDT