Z/Web

Director: Peter Jackson

This is an amazing film. It’s the true story of two New Zealand teenage girls in the 1950’s who conspire to commit murder. That alone would be sufficient spectacle for most films, but Jackson brilliantly takes it a step further. He gets us into the girls’ heads by playfully making their fantasy lives real. In one sequence, as the girls play on the beach with the sand castle they created, the camera zooms inside the castle and in it we meet the prince and princess the girls imagine live there. The benefit of this technique, besides making for a fascinating visual presentation, is that it shows us the power of dementia, for these girls believe in their fantasies even more than they do their real lives. As the film darkens and becomes more tragic, the playful aspects of fantasy become morbid and disturbing; what was once an idle game is now grim horror. Amazing writing, acting, and directing. This is a must see film.

I’d heard this was very bad, and while it’s not good, it’s not as bad as I expected. Well, it’s uneven. In places it’s really pathetic, in others it’s passable, and in others it’s actually quite good. But overall it’s weak. The first problem is the script. The novel is trimmed quite a bit and events are condensed, which serves to eliminate a lot of the suspense and excitement of the book. Of course this was a Christian production, so they couldn’t trim out the religious details, and unfortunately those come across as heavy-handed and awkward. There just wasn’t enough substance to the script to support such drama. I like the effort, and it was an ambitious effort to make this outside the Hollywood system, but unfortunately it has a video-tape movie-of-the-week feel to it. The story would have been better served by allowing Hollywood to do it, but with Christians controlling the production and having final cut. Not only would the production have been higher quality, but the perspective would have been more genuine (much of the story is as witnessed by non-Christians). I wonder if it was a financial success and they’ll do more?