‘The Giver’ Taketh Away
Anyone familiar with Lois Lowry’s beloved children’s novel The Giver knows that one of its key tenets is precise language. So I’m going to phrase the next sentence as precisely as possible: This movie adaption does not live up to the book. In fact, this movie adaptation is so bland that it makes the chief inspiration for such young adult sci-fi dystopias as The Hunger Games and Divergent seem like a shoddy knockoff.
Part of the film’s problem may be timing. Jeff Bridges, who both stars as the eponymous Giver and is credited as a producer, began trying to adapt Lowry’s subtle, smart indictment of totalitarian societies (including, arguably, our own) almost as soon as it was published in 1993. But back then, everyone from possible financiers to Lowry herself resisted. In the intervening years, it influenced an entire industry of young adult books and subsequent movie franchises, which in turn boasted massive followings, Hollywood budgets, and, yes, talent – not to mention bad-ass female heroines, which The Giver itself sorely lacks. By the time Bridges finally managed to get this film project together, the ground beneath it had shifted seismically. And perhaps its foundation just wasn’t strong enough to withstand such changes. Continue Reading →
Leave It to Slim: Lauren Bacall, 1924-2014
Leave it to Lauren Bacall, who died August 12 at age 89, to slink out the back door just as the whole country was distracted by the news of Robin Williams’ suicide. The lady knew how to make an entrance and – maybe more importantly – she knew how to make an exit, too. But though she led an astoundingly full life, I’d still like to catch her by the well-tailored sleeve and whisper, “Not so fast, Slim.” We didn’t just lose the only person who could hold her own with Humphrey Bogart. Fast-talking dames everywhere just lost an important big sister.
She was born Betty Perske, a nice Jewish girl in Brooklyn, and we could argue it was her father’s early disappearance that led her into Bogie’s arms when she was nineteen years old and he was a hard-drinking, thrice-married forty-four. But anyone who’s seen the duo’s onscreen chemistry knows that’s too pat an assessment. Bogie was more than twice her age, sure, but those two were of a piece. Certainly no one could match his supreme self-possession until she fixed him with that famous come-hither stare. No wonder director Howard Hawks, whose wife discovered Bacall on the cover of Harper’s Bazaar, marketed her as “The Look.” Continue Reading →
Rush-Hour Sorrow, Rush-Hour Sweet
Checking my phone tonight on a rush-hour train, I discovered an unwanted email from an ex with whom I still have an unhappily charged dynamic. I did what I always do with messages from him these days–I deleted it–but not before his brief email walloped me in the chest. Surrounded by people in the packed sardine can of the subway car, I couldn’t shake the shock of the unsolicited reminder of everything I (we) had lost, couldn’t exhale as deeply as I needed to without making a scene, couldn’t just curse the heavens. So I froze, silently imploring the tears in my eyes not to run down my cheeks, and felt lonely in a way I never feel when actually alone. A hand tapped my shoulder then, and I looked up to see a young woman in full Muslim garb and orange high-tops smiling gently at me. “It’s ok,” she mouthed, and my eyes widened at her vigilant kindness, as well as the palpable warmth of all the other commuters regarding me with concern. This, during a week marked by sorrows on every level, too.
But that’s just another day on the IRT, as they used to say. Really, it amazes me that visitors ever accuse this city of harshness. From the minute that I moved here, New York has been my truest, steadiest heart. I cannot count the times that its denizens have matter-of-factly shored my grief.