Coming of age with chills & horror
Film review: It
Adapting Stephen King’s novels to film has always been a hit-andmiss proposition, with more misses than hits. When you consider that It is over a thousand hundred pages, the challenge for any adaptation would be how to edit down the storyline without losing the essence of the wellloved book. Director Andy Muschietti (Mama) and the screenplay writers take the route of excising the book’s back-and-forth timeline, and sticking to the passages that have to do when our “heroes” are children — and leaving all the “reuniting as adults” for a potential Part II.
Given that, what we have now is a coming of age, adolescent bonding film that echoes
Stand By Me and The Goonies, with a creature feature element thrown in (the shape-shifting clown, Pennywise) to provide the chills and horror. The misfits and outcasts who make up the school’s self-styled Losers Club are wonderfully presented, each given distinct personality — and individual phobia or fear. Bill (Jaeden Lieberher — who we last saw in St. Vincent and Midnight Special), token girl Beverly (Sophia Lillis) and new kid/ town historian Ben (Jer- emy Ray Taylor) are my standouts here. But by and large, whenever the Nerd Squad is onscreen, getting by with life, making commentary, and bonding, the film truly sparkles.
It’s in mixing these humanizing vignettes with the jump scares this film demands that becomes the challenge for the filmmakers. Pennywise (Bill Skarsgard) excels in making his demonic appearance early on, but then being strategically brought in as the exposition of each gang member is laid out. Effective, as more than being a one-dimensional creature of terror, he shape shifts, entering the mind of each child and manifesting as their personalized bogey-man, whenever the children are separated. The themes of “in unity there is strength,” and how no one is left behind, resonate because we all have invested emotionally in each character’s backstory, appreciating why they have ended up as confederates.
Having said that, I found myself ironically more connected with the portions of the film that showcased this growing up aspect. The jump scares at a certain point become almost expected, and while they do provide the required chills, pale in comparison to how the film truly comes to life as we sympathize with the kids and the conflicts they face. This is especially true for Beverly, whose relationship with her father is even more horrifying than anything Pennywise could conjure up. Three cheers for a strong, successful Stephen King film adaptation!