Schmaltzy Simon Birch no match for novel
Faith, in this film, just feels too good to be true.
By Peter T. Chattaway
ChristianWeek film critic
Best friends Joe Wenteworth (Joseph Mazzello, left) and Simon Birch (Ian Michael Smith, right) share a common bond as Joe tries to find his real father, and Simon tries to discover the special destiny he knows is waiting for him, in Simon Birch.
Simon Birch, starring Ian Michael Smith, Joseph Mazzello and Ashley Judd, is directed by Mark Steven Johnson. Rated PG for language, emotional thematic elements, and an accident scene.
Books and the movies based on them are entirely different creatures. The written word and the projected image are profoundly different forms of communication, and it is generally unfair to write off a film simply because, as the saying goes, the book was better. But even when stories are trimmed to fit inside a two-hour feature film, one generally hopes that something of the book’s essence will survive and make it to the screen.
Simon Birch, alas, does not achieve this, nor does it seem to try. The film is, as the credits state, "suggested by" John Irving’s potent, hilarious, and somewhat freaky novel A Prayer for Owen Meany. But first-time director Mark Steven Johnson–who, before adapting this tale, earned his spurs writing the Grumpy Old Men scripts–cuts out almost everything that made the book interesting and transforms a moving story about faith, doubt and predestination into yet another piece of cinematic schmaltz. (Hence, at Irving’s request, the change in the story’s title.)
In the book, Owen Meany was a paradoxical figure who, despite his short stature and his squeaky, high-pitched voice, seemed capable of ordering anyone about–church authorities, teachers, even his own parents–if he put his mind to it. He knew the impending date of his own death and had foreseen the circumstances surrounding it in a dream, and his certainty about his fate gave him a fearless precociousness.
But Simon Birch (Ian Michael Smith) is a whole different character. He’s outspoken, yes, but in a cute, not ominous, sort of way. He wants to be a hero, but he has his doubts and wishes God would send him a sign to confirm his aspirations. In the meantime, he is intimidated by parents who don’t believe in him and by the Sunday school teacher (Jan Hooks) and perpetually harried Reverend Russell (David Strathairn) who try to keep him in line.
In other words, Owen Meany has, in Simon Birch, become the latest manifestation of that enduring Hollywood archetype: the forlorn dreamer who, unsatisfied with his lot in life, harbors romantic hopes of Something Big.
The changes to his character end up affecting the others, too. Simon’s best friend Joe (Joseph Mazzello, who played C.S. Lewis’s stepson in Shadowlands) now seems too eager in his quest for the father he never knew; Owen had an active hand in shaping that subplot, too, but Simon just tags along for the ride.
No trace of doubt
And when the grown-up Joe (Jim Carrey), who narrates the story, says he now believes in God, it’s not really clear what convinced him, nor is there any trace of the doubts which, in the book, were seen as somehow essential to belief. This Joe is anything but troubled; he smiles, beams, and speaks earnestly about his faith, which seems to consist of warm sentiments and not much else. Faith, in this film, just feels too good to be true.
It doesn’t help that Johnson has a knack for emphasizing the obvious. The sequence in which Joe’s mother Rebecca (Ashley Judd) is killed by a foul ball makes excessive use of slow-motion photography, and Marc Schaiman’s score always tells the audience just what to feel.
Moreover, the film throws out the usual classic pop hits–the "Peter Gunn Theme" when Joe begins to snoop around for his dad, Martha Reeves’ "Nowhere to Run" when the boys are caught breaking into their coach’s office–for no good reason other than that they help to sell soundtrack albums.
Johnson’s need to wring every last drop of emotion from his audience culminates in a frantic schoolbus accident, apparently pinched from Atom Egoyan’s The Sweet Hereafter, and a deathbed scene that, admittedly, caused no small degree of sniffling at the screening I attended. But the sniffles are not honestly earned; a saccharine artificiality hangs over the proceedings throughout this final episode.
Even if we avoid comparing this film to the book which "suggested" it, Simon Birch fails as a movie in its own right. As natural born media critic Owen Meany might have put it, the whole exercise feels "MADE FOR TELEVISION."
