The first movie, which was only released under the name It (hopefully allowing more people to have the experience I had getting surprised at the end that it’s one of two films!), engrossed me the whole time. I rewatched it for the sake of this post and since I felt like I didn’t pay enough attention to the performance underneath the makeup for the miniseries I was more cognizant this time.
Bill Skarsgård was terrific! Even if you leave aside his appearance Pennywise was creepy. Even more so in the second one, which I just came home from after attending at the earliest possible showtime on the earliest possible day. Gotta make my fans happy 😊
I originally thought of giving the second one its own post but they are telling one continuous story so it seemed better to combine them.
The second chapter also engrossed me. It squeezed more in, as the first chapter only featured scenes with the characters’ child versions while this features plenty of both the child and adult versions. Also, Chapter Two is obviously the one that resolves the whole thing and that takes a while. Still, it’s a great movie.
I’ll be honest – after I watched Chapter One in a theater I couldn’t remember much of what happened, even though I definitely remembered liking it. Heck I just rewatched it yesterday and the day before and it’s still hard for me to articulate but I’ll try. It is my job, LOL.
Chapter One shows how Pennywise takes on the forms of whatever scares the individual child with whom he’s dealing. Chapter Two goes all out as far as showing that his power comes from fear, and the underlying theme of the film concerns holding onto past pain in spite of ourselves and how that affects us.
While the miniseries made the climactic confrontation with Pennywise pretty straightforward, allowing the emotion to come from the interactions between the characters, the films provides the latter while using the extra hours to also make the battle with Pennywise something else entirely. I’ve realized that this is at heart an existential story, with Pennywise representing our own inner demons. Even though he only turns up in the town of Derry every 27 years, perhaps there’s a version of him somewhere at all times.
Whether such a philosophical horror story can work comes down to characters, and they get a huge thumbs up from me.
One element of that is how well written they are, and all of “The Losers” are three-dimensional, with unique personalities and conflicts. Any time you have an ensemble there’s the temptation to make some or all of them a prototype but that just doesn’t feel the case here.
The other is how well they’re portrayed. Just like in the miniseries, uniformly excellent! The only one of the child actors with whom I was familiar was Mike from Stranger Things, who portrays Richie here, but I thought the best child performance here, just like in the miniseries, belonged to the kid playing Bill. I hope this one goes on to a much better life than the tragic Jonathan Brandis! As far as the adults, the only ones who are already famous are James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, and Bill Hader, yet the actor that most got to me was the guy playing Ben. That Honest Trailer episode I mentioned hilariously pointed out how the “fat” kid in the miniseries wasn’t that big. Honestly, I didn’t see a difference between him and the middle-aged John Ritter. Here we see the stark contrast intended and are proud of Ben! Whatever individual actors I’ve singled out though, I’ll reiterate that everyone does a great job bringing their compelling characters to life and making us care deeply about their conflicts that manage to be both internal and otherworldly.
One thing that jumped out at me: in the miniseries Bill’s wife Audra borders on being not only a major character but the heart of the story. Here she just has one brief (and frankly unnecessary) scene. I’m wondering which take is truer to Steven King’s book.
I’m not going to look it up though, because I now want to read the book myself. From some of the stuff of his I have read (The Eyes of the Dragon, Misery, etc.) I know how well he can make us feel psychological trauma. I’m intrigued to experience his story in its truest form.
If you prefer movies though (and I’ll admit I do so you can be honest) this one was made with his participation and I think you’ll like it.
Agree? Disagree? Feel free to comment.
Bottom line: Dark but uplifting – and very good!
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