The other high profile wide release literary adaptation playing right now is The Mist, from a novella by Stephen King. This movie inarguably fails in important ways, but is still well worth seeing for its "good parts." Director Frank Darabont has made a career of top shelf King adaptations; this is his third, following The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. "The Mist" is a different kind of King story: written by King in his youth, and his prime, betraying a drug-fueled inappropriate amusement, by the mischievous attitude informing the ugliness and violence with which he attacks his characters, their social context, the literary conventions of the genre horror story.
In The Mist successful commercial artist and happy small-town suburbanite David Drayton is visiting the local grocery store with his small son and his semi-hostile neighbor Mr. Norton, when a weird white fog or mist, impenetrable to the eye, pours across the parking lot and blots out everything outside the plate glass front windows of the store, a mist, those trapped in the store quickly learn, which seethes with hidden monsters. (We find out later that there's been some kind of physics accident at a nearby government installation, opening a doorway to another dimension.) Among the grocery store patrons tensions rapidly soar and rapidly strip away social niceties, replacing them with mob madness and the threat of violence, a shift spearheaded by the rapid rise of local crazy Mrs. Carmody from harmless mumbling Christian maniac to ranting evangelical leader howling for bloodshed. Eventually the faction representing reason and responsibility, which includes Mr. Drayton and his son, a store manager named Ollie and an attractive female lead, along with a couple of old people, must decide to take their chances outside, with the monsters, to escape the human monsters in the store.
"The Mist" happens to be one of my favorite Stephen King stories; if I had room, it would be a pleasure to discuss at length the interesting changes time and adaptation have rung on the source text itself, changes reflecting those in the literary landscape, the cinema, and the real world – elements once wildly fantastic now seem ominously grounded in possibility; elements once unfilmable, now provide the core for a mass audience entertainment. It's as unfortunate as it is obvious, that writer-director Darabont has made a mixed muddle of this movie version.
Darabont's previous work has been characterized by firm control, and mannered distance, a stately methodical pace and somber restrained demeanor, traits of style collectively reminiscent of a certain kind of "old Hollywood" movie, a complex style, almost arty, possibly pretentious, perfectly suited to the material then at hand: quiet, character-driven stories, nearly histrionic with emotion, author King indulging his streak of maudlin sentimentality to its utmost extent, perfectly complemented by filmmaker Darabont's cold stern grip. On The Mist, in tune with the text, Darabont has altered his style, straining toward a certain kind of trendy jittery tense naturalism, using, for instance, a lot of shaky handheld camerawork, and it's just not a language Darabont is totally comfortable with. He doesn't seem to understand the propulsive narrative drive necessary to this kind of movie, either; it sputters and fizzles, lurching under the weight of unnecessary supporting scenes, of characters and performances that don't quite convince or engage. As a screenwriter Darabont is often on shaky ground with characters and story here; they, the characters that is, do a lot of things that don't quite make sense, on a realistic level anyway, failing to show the right emotions, or behaving unbelievably, awkwardly emphasizing that mannered distance I mentioned, a crippling flaw that gradually deepens the damage it does throughout the picture, finally culminating in a surprise "twist" ending that's so shockingly inappropriate, in terms of character, that I laughed out loud when I was supposed to be horrified, and I bet Darabont isn't allowed the creative freedom to screw up his movie like that, next time around, not if the production has the kind of budget he's accustomed to (like its two predecessors, The Mist is handsomely produced, for which Mr. Darabont shares the key credit).
On the positive side, all those peculiarities of style unexpectedly make Mr. Darabont a great action director; whenever the freaky monsters get into the store and attack people, The Mist lights up like the tree in your living room. Only these scenes really work, but they work ferociously: several monster attack sequences in this movie are genuinely intense, violent, and scary, in the funnest possible way, if those are qualities you find to be any fun at all. At least two moments with the icky mist-monsters are truly classic, another word I try not to throw around lightly, though I seem to have been using it an awful lot lately to describe the contents of monster movies, which reflects the place to which digital effects have taken the state-of-the-art (and I didn't even get into how cool Beowulf's monsters are!).
Another movie that ultimately fails, but has a lot of good stuff in it, is the ambitious confection entitled Mister Magorium's Wonder Emporium. A magical toymaker, played by Dustin Hoffman, runs the title store, an entity of independent, albeit inarticulate, consciousness, which spends its days incessantly tormenting giggles from its customers and staff by surrounding them with amusing impossible occurrences among the store's often unexpectedly animated stock, real magic which occurs by way of movie magic, largely digital effects. Mister Magorium, who's 243 years old, realizes the time has come for him to "pass away," so he hires an accountant (Jason Bateman) to sort out his estate, whose humorless materialistic outlook prevents him from seeing the store's magic, in a literal sense; weird digital effects only happen behind his back when he's around. Magorium uses his own coming demise as a tool to arrange for those close to him, to teach one another important life lessons: Bateman of course lacks a sense of wonder, Magorium's store manager Natalie Portman lacks faith in herself, and their favorite customer, a lonely creative child named Eric (Zach Mills), needs to learn how to make friends, while all of them must learn to cope with the inevitable passing of the old guy who's already taught them so many wonderful things.
All the supporting elements in this movie work great; in effect an ultragentle cross between Willy Wonka and Harold and Maude, Mister Magorium is thoughtfully written (writer-director Zach Helm wrote last year's hit Stranger Than Fiction) for both sensitive preschoolers and their pot-smoking parents, remarkable for its inventive magical toy store sequences, and a real literary bent, manifested in structural mannerisms too intricate to pry into here, any more than I have room to describe the cool toy store gags. There are some nice performances too; Hoffman oddly didn't do much for me (he seems to be trying to imitate Ray Bolger and failing), but Portman and Bateman are both great, and so is the child lead.
Unfortunately, there's just not enough story going on, for all this neat stuff to happen in the course of. The script does arrange, tentatively, for some conflicts to occur, but downplays them and backgrounds them so thoroughly, you get the impression Helm liked his characters too much to ruffle them unpleasantly, or intentionally hurt their feelings. Mister Magorium spends most of its time meandering through well-meant platitudinous dialogue about death and joy and creativity that will become increasingly boring for children and stoners alike. That being said, it's hard to imagine a movie with its heart, or its imagination, closer to the right place; though it's tiringly preachy, and embarrassingly earnest, the messages it delivers are all unapproachably good. (That is, unless you're cynical enough to think it's naive, to give humanity as much credit, as Mr. Helm seems to; I am that cynical myself, but I also think that family-oriented fantastic film, is probably a suitable arena for the expression of optimistic naivety.) At least these filmmakers have failed, in an attempt to do something special, and worthwhile; at least they partially succeeded – whenever the wacky toy store acts up, or Ms. Portman winsomely smiles.
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