In case you haven't noticed, August is the month for the “serious” children films. And I do mean serious – movies backed by big names and loaded with big, ambitious themes. Heck, some of these films are actually too serious for kids. Drop'em off at Tom and Jerry, instead.
This month, Hollywood is apparently trying to reconcile with dear, old – and absent – Dad. The central themes of The Man Without a Face, The Secret Garden and Searching for Bobby Fischer revolve around this issue. As these films conclude, absence (whether physical or psychological) doesn't make the heart grow fonder. It simply makes the kid more bitter and confused.
Get with the program, pop. Hollywood is telling you to get in touch with your kids' feelings. And it's telling you this via some of the more intelligent films of the summer.
Gibson Comes of Age
Intelligence is one of the surprise ingredients of each of these films. Even Mel Gibson – the man of a thousand bun shots – has taken on a weighty subject and role in The Man Without a Face. In many ways, it's the most difficult of the three films. It's also the most flawed.
The Man Without a Face is Gibson's directorial debut, and the raw sincerity of his intentions is surprising. With a few exceptions, Gibson has rarely stretched himself as an actor. After two too many Lethal Weapon films, he seemed content to coast on his good looks and stunt man's prowess.
But The Man Without a Face is Mel striving hard to be both lyrical and psychologically insightful. To top it off, he tackles a role in the movie that is part Elephant Man and part Phantom of the Opera.
The film's main character, however, is 12-year-old Chuck Norstadt (Nick Stahl). Surrounded by two half-sisters and a mother who is perpetually between marriages, Chuck is a troubled boy lacking male guidance. He has turned his dead father into a dreamy hero figure and is desperate to attend the military school his father graduated from. But bad grades, hyperactivity and an anti-social attitude stand in his way.
Enter McLeod (Gibson), a horribly scarred recluse who has shut himself off from the world. McLeod also happens to be a gifted artist and an ex-teacher. Chuck soon finds that McLeod is a more manly mentor than his mother's latest beau.
But Chuck receives bad news: his daddy was no hero, and his mentor was convicted of something that nightmares are made of.
In The Man Without a Face, Gibson demonstrates that he has guts – but that he's not a good director. He has a weak grasp of editing continuity, and his obsessive use of close-ups nearly butchers some great cinematography by Donald M. McAlpine.
It's All in How You Look
Great images are virtually the point of The Secret Garden. Executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola, and directed by Agnieszka Holland, the film opts for a largely visual translation of the classic novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Beginning like a fairy tale, with a gaudy prologue in India, The Secret Garden turns into a bleak and monochromatic vision of 19th-century England. You can't wait for the garden to start sprouting color.
The lives of the movie's child characters are equally bleak. Mary Lennox (Kate Maberly) is ignored by her parents – so much so that she hardly misses them when they're killed in India by an earthquake. She is sent back to England to live with her uncle, a widower who spends most of his time moping around his estate.
Not that Mary is a joy to be around. She's snotty, repressed and doesn't know how to dress herself. But the situation begins to transform when she meets her sickly cousin and a wise farm boy. What starts as simple gardening with the boys becomes a process of amazing healing for each child. The only challenge that remains for one boy is getting Dad's attention.
The Secret Garden skirts with Hallmark card-like predictability. But it works, largely due to Holland's shrewd and sensitive direction. The nearly inevitable reconciliation of father and son is touching primarily because it's so well photographed. (Hey, they don't have to like each other. They just have to look good together.)
Hard Life Lessons
The crowned price of this summer's “where's poppa?” competition is Searching for Bobby Fischer.
Based on a true story (whatever that means these days), Searching for Bobby Fischer follows the quest of seven-year-old Josh Waitzkin to become a chess prodigy like his elusive idol, his dad. Josh is driven, in part, by a need for his father's approval. But the august parent, of course, is slow on the uptake.
With dad initially out of the picture, Josh receives most of his life lessons from his two mentors. One is an aggressive chess hustler (Laurence Fishburne), who can wipe a board clean in a dozen moves. The other is an embittered grand master (Ben Kingsley), who is more enamored with the art of the game.
What Josh learns is that the approach of each man is right – and wrong. Ultimately, it's his father who helps him learn to accept the best in each method, while sidestepping the worst.
Most importantly, he learns how to be a kid.
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