The sheer existence of this third
adaptation of Stephen King’s debut novel is a baffling phenomenon—as
difficult to explain as the blood that's somehow drawn from a porcelain Jesus by the titular telekinetic teen. The film’s being hyped as more faithful to the source
material, as though that meant anything. King himself stated his own confusion as
to why Screen Gems/MGM would pursue the project when the original Brian De
Palma-directed Carrie (1976),
featuring a genius lead performance from Sissy Spacek, was so good. Conceding
that it would at least be fun to cast, King suggested Lindsay Lohan as Carrie.
Which would be ridiculous. But trust me, ridiculous would be vastly preferable
to this new Carrie, which is dull and
pointless.
Shorting
out fluorescents and exploding her high school principal’s water cooler within
the first ten minutes, our new Carrie (Chloë Grace Moretz) displays her special
abilities—spurred by her menstrual cycle’s belated inauguration—early and
flamboyantly. Relentlessly teased by her peers and chastised daily by her
mentally ill religious zealot mother (Julianne Moore), Carrie is a hapless
outcast even in her own home. As with old Carrie,
new Carrie tracks its heroine’s
fleeting illusion of social acceptance, public humiliation and eventual
climatic vengeance. Strangely, while new Carrie
more or less follows the same narrative trajectory as old Carrie, its ostensible heroine barely
registers as a presence; this time around, it seems like Sue (Gabriella
Wilde)—the girl who feels bad and convinces her boyfriend to take Carrie to the
prom as repentance—is actually the protagonist. Too bad Sue is also boring.
This
is partly due to the miscasting of Moretz, who seems unable to navigate
Carrie’s emotional journey. She offers the same slack-jawed, wounded expression
in scene after scene, switching to an unconvincing demented smile during her
reign of terror. Where Spacek’s Carrie was a tormented, naïve yet intelligent girl
on the cusp of womanly self-actualization, Moretz’s Carrie reads as mere victim,
so withdrawn as to be opaque and nearly impossible to empathize with. Butt empathy
she gets, from boring Sue, from Billy (Alex Russell), Sue’s boyfriend, and from
Miss Desjardin (Judy Greer), the gym teacher. The performances from Russell,
whose posturing is endearingly hilarious, and Greer, who deftly plays her ever
scene for laughs, are easily the best things in the movie. The scene where
Billy teaches Carrie to slow-dance is sweet.
There
are reasons why a 21st century Carrie could
have been relevant, such as the story’s potential engagement with rising
concerns over bullying, especially via the internet, or Carrie’s mom’s alliance
with the religious right. But, aside from an video of a terrified Carrie being
uploaded onto YouTube—an act of very little consequence to the story—new Carrie might as well have been set in
1976. Its paucity of fresh ideas is kind of astounding, as is the absence of
any envelope-pushing for a young audience accustomed to more gore and
degradation. (No, you won’t see Moretz’s “dirty pillows.”) Spacek’s Carrie was
far scarier and De Palma’s version was far more sensationalistic and sexualized,
right down to the all-but-explicit homosexuality of the gym teacher. Even the
special effects in old Carrie are
more effective than the limpid, ultra-phony CG on display here. Watching so
much lazy craft on display here—the uninspired coverage, the cuts that don’t
match—you get the impression that director Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don’t Cry, Stop-Loss) just gave up. The film was originally slated for a March
release and the delay seems to have been prompted by reshoots to make the final
result even stupider. As in art, so in life: Pierce got bullied. And now
everybody has to pay.
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