2.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, dramatic intensity, profanity, disturbing images and nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.8.19
When asked how he can stand to have so many of his books and stories ruined by bad movie adaptations, Stephen King is fond of quoting James M. Cain, who faced the same question in the wake of his novels being sanitized — to the point of absurdity — by 1940s and ’50s Hollywood morality standards.
 |
| Against his better judgment, but forced by dire circumstance, Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) once again finds himself in the malevolent hallways of the dread Overlook Hotel. |
“They’re not ruined,” Cain growled, pointing to his bookshelf. “They’re all right there!”
King can point to a much larger shelf, and it would be overstating to claim that director/scripter Mike Flanagan completely botched his handling of Stephen King’s sequel to 1977’s enormously popular The Shining. The first two acts of this film adaptation are impressively faithful to the 2013 novel.
The third act is something else again.
It destroys the good will Flanagan has built up to that point, while demonstrating the arrogant hubris of filmmakers who believe that all books — and plays, TV shows, whatever — are ripe for “improvement.”
I’m not referring to the judicious trimming required to condense (in this case) a 528-page novel into a 151-minute film. Flanagan skillfully removed a couple of supporting characters, nipped here and tucked there, and trimmed the extensive attention paid to a hopeless alcoholic not yet ready to become sober (while retaining the issue vividly enough to make its point).
No, I’m much more troubled by Flanagan’s decision to completely re-write the ending, while simultaneously indulging in a mean-spirited viciousness wholly at odds with the tone of King’s book. The result is simply wrong, although intriguing from an analytical point of view: Flanagan’s first two acts honor King’s text, but the ill-advised third act plays more like a clumsy sequel to Stanley Kubrick’s’ 1980 adaptation of The Shining … which also screwed up its source material.
(Flanagan should have learned from previous mistakes, given his equally failed 2017 handling of King’s Gerald’s Game.)
A prologue finds young Danny Torrance and his mother relocated to Florida, only a short time after the events in The Shining: as far removed as possible from the freezing, claustrophobic Colorado snows that surrounded the dread Overlook Hotel. But its phantasms still haunt Danny, until the kindly specter of Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly, regal as always) teaches the boy how to deal with such vengeful shades.
Flash-forward several decades. Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor), long tortured by his “shine,” has succumbed to the alcoholism that helped transform his father into the monster so easily corrupted by the Overlook’s supernatural residents. Constantly fleeing from bad situations, Dan hops a bus and randomly steps out in bucolic Frazier, N.H. He soon encounters Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis), who senses all is not right with this newcomer. Dan responds to this random act of kindness, late one night, by knocking on Billy’s door and saying the three magic words: “I need help.”
Flash-forward another eight years. Sober since that night, Dan has become a respectable community member. He’s also a cherished staff member at the local hospice, where — thanks to his shine — he has a talent for easing dying residents during their final few moments: a gift that earns him the nickname “Doctor Sleep.”
Meanwhile, via cross-cutting elsewhere, we’ve also been introduced to the other key players.
First and foremost are the members of the vampiric True Knot, who’ve achieved quasi-immortaility by seeking children who have the shine, and devouring this talent. Such feedings are a barbaric affair, involving the slow butchery of young victims, which enriches the “steam” as it emerges from the terrified, agonized child’s mouth.
Flanagan grimly takes us through one such feeding — Jacob Tremblay, of Room and The Book of Henry, popping up as the doomed young baseball player — and it’s a brutal affair. This is the point at which we understand that Flanagan’s film has teeth.
This sequence also is far more effective than anything emerging during the third act.
In between feedings, the peripatetic True Knot — led by the malevolent Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) — move their small herd of Winnebagos throughout the United States, passing as the human beings they most definitely aren’t: predators mimicking their prey.
Still elsewhere, the True Knot’s activities have been sensed by Abra Stone (Kyliegh Curran), a middle school prodigy with a tremendous degree of shine. She long ago reached out to Dan, who for years has been bemused by occasional messages from this unknown (but clearly young) individual. More specific contact becomes an imperative after Abra senses the butchery of the “baseball boy” … because she, in turn, has been sensed by Rose.
Who immediately knows that this girl has such a strong shine, that her steam could fuel all True Knot members for a long, long time. In order to save Abra, Dan must become a “shine mentor,” much the way Dick Hallorann did that for him, so many years earlier.
McGregor’s thoughtful portrayal of Dan makes him a compelling protagonist, even at his most flawed. Redemption is a powerful narrative hook, and McGregor wins our hearts so effortlessly, that we desperately want Dan to succeed. His bedside visits showcase McGregor at his finest, interacting with these frightened “patients” with gentleness and respect, aided at times by dialog lifted straight from King’s novel (the book’s most poignant passages, as well).
McGregor also adds a disorienting lilt to his accent, sounding at times like Jack Nicholson: in other words, an appropriate cadence for the grown son of the father from The Shining.
Ferguson is a terrific villain. On the one hand a brutal, implacable monster, she’s also beguiling, seductively charming and supremely confident: a chilling combination that almost makes her admirable. After all, Rose is simply doing what any tribal leader would do: anything necessary to keep her flock alive. Ferguson’s Rose is ookie-awful, but she’s also likable.
Curran’s Abra is feisty, reckless and just a little bit “dark”: a girl not fully aware of the extent of her powers, who derives perhaps too much pleasure from the application of same. As all these characters begin to converge — quite violently — we never doubt, from Curran’s performance, that Abra is a formidable opponent who gives even Rose second thoughts.
Zahn McClarnon, well remembered as the honorable Officer Mathias on television’s Longmire, is sublime as Rose’s lieutenant, Crow Daddy. McClarnon never speaks forcefully — the profoundly evil don’t need to — but his reptilian gaze, and slithery movements, are quite unsettling.
Curtis is eminently steadfast as Billy, the staunchest ally one could hope to encounter. At the other end of the morality scale, Emily Alyn Lind is quite creepy as Snakebite Andi, a True Knot member with the ability to “push” people into her commanded behavior.
Flanagan’s touch is certain for quite some time, raising tension by establishing these characters — and their various talents — with the patience that King demonstrates in his novel. As the second act nears its conclusion, we’re at the edge of our seats, wanting (and fearing) to see what comes next.
And then Flanagan breaks faith, by adding the first twist not found in King’s book, during the climax of a campground encounter. From there it’s a ludicrously quick trip to Colorado, where Dan and Abra will make their final stand against the True Knot.
In the Overlook Hotel.
(Which, for the record, is long destroyed in King’s novel, and figures not at all in his plot’s resolution.)
At this point, Flanagan and production designer Maher Ahmad seem far more obsessed with demonstrating their faithfulness to Kubrick’s Overlook — the sinister hallways, the little twin girls, the ocean of blood emerging from the elevator, and so forth — than in bringing their story to a conclusion justified by what has come before.
Flanagan botches it completely. The third act is overlong, overly obsessed with visuals, shamefully stuffed with gratuitous Kubrickian touches, and — the biggest sin — is boring.
In a heartbeat, this becomes a failed thriller that should’ve been half an hour shorter. And, ultimately, far better structured. Which serves Flanagan right, for having the temerity to go off-book so clumsily.
Such a shame. But finales are what linger, when we exit the theater, and Doctor Sleep leaves us with a very unpleasant taste.
No comments:
Post a Comment