Based on the trailer, I wasn't expecting a very good film when I went to see this, and my fears proved to be well-founded. I could tell that it was likely to be a heavy-handed film that would never come close to resembling anything in the neighborhood of subtlety. I could tell that it would likely only be a truly accessible experience to people who came in sharing its world view (I tend to dislike such exclusionary films whether I agree with them or not). While both of these reservations I had turned out to be true, they were not the giant, flashing, neon red warning sign that my last concern was. Even in the trailer, it was painfully obvious that the child actor in the film's central role was absolutely terrible. When I saw the film, I found that my concern was all too valid.
I've seen my share of bad child actors, both in person and on screen, but this kid truly set the bar to an all-time low. His facial expression barely changes throughout the film--it seems to come with two settings: squinting and not squinting. His line deliveries are similarly vacant and repetitive. Every line gives the impression that it was fed to him just before the cameras started rolling, and he is merely repeating the words without inflection or emotion. I don't know who to assign most of the blame to for this--it's not all on the kid, since he obviously didn't cast himself. I've often found that with child actors, the quality of the performance depends far greater on the quality of direction than is the case with older actors. If a director is able to relate to the kid and make it fun for them, they're more likely to get a good performance. Maybe this director just wasn't able to do that. Maybe the kid couldn't deliver no matter what the director tried. Regardless of who is to blame, the kid's performance utterly destroys the film. If he were only a side character seen in the background of a few scenes, I would be able to overlook it, but since the film focuses so heavily on his character, the performance is downright unacceptable.
Greg Kinnear and Thomas Haden Church do their best, and manage to bring some quality acting to the film. Their scenes together are a relief in comparison to the rest of the film, but the material they're given here still isn't that great. The heavy handedness of the film and its unexciting, plodding script doomed it from the start. It never had a chance to be more than a just below average film. The kid's performance, however, completely negated any redeeming qualities it could have ever hoped to have.
No comments:
Post a Comment