Movie Review: Bridge to Terabithia

Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

I was fully prepared to hate Bridge to Terabithia, and not just because I was watching it on a Greyhound bus en route from Boston to New York, a trip that I would generally rather spend reading a good book than watching, well, what I expected to be a bad interpretation of a good book.

Hollywood doesn't do literature well all that often. Disney gets it right even less often than Hollywood in general does. The CGI-driven ad campaign did not inspire any confidence that this would be an exception to those rules, and I made a point of missing this when it hit theaters.

Katherine Paterson's novel, Bridge to Terabithia, occupies a special place in my childhood memories. At the time I read it (5th grade), I found it very difficult. This is classic tragedy written against the backdrop of childhood, and a big part of the message that the book sends is that life can be viciously unfair. I can't say that I liked the book the first time I read it, but I can say that it left a lasting impression and that it was one of those books that I grew to love and now look back on as one of the very important reading experiences of my childhood. This would be difficult material for a film to get right.

As it turns out, Disney got a lot more of it right than I was expecting them to.

First of all, while I don't want to spoil, I will say that the plot was left basically intact, including the ending. Jesse Aarons, a seventh grader in a rural town struggles to find acceptance from his father as he discovers the power of friendship and the power of the imagination through a girl who has just moved into town. The two of them find an escape from life's problems in an imaginary magical kingdom.

The characters, even the minor characters, are given some nice depth here. Even the bully and the "mean teacher" get some moments of complexity. In general, the casting was solid, as was the acting. Robert Patrick, as Jesse's no-nonsense dad, gives an expecially strong performance during the last act. Josh Hutcherson as Jesse is convincing throughout the film, and Zooey Deschanel is just plain fun as a charismatic and freethinking music teacher.