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Review #400 of 365
Movie Review of Bridge to Terabithia (2007) [PG] 95 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $11.75
Where Viewed: United Artists Denver Pavilions Stadium 15, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 16 February 2007
Time: 7:10 p.m.
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
DVD Release Date: unscheduled
Directed by: Gabor Csupo (Dance)
Screenplay by: Jeff Stockwell (The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys) and David Paterson (Fragments) based on the book by Katherine Paterson
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Josh Hutcherson (RV) • AnnaSophia Robb (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) • Zooey Deschanel (Failure to Launch) • Robert Patrick (We Are Marshall)
Soundtrack: Download now from 
— or — order the CD below
Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word or less review of this film]
With no knowledge of the content of the "beloved novel" (at least, according to the poster headlines) Bridge to Terabithia, as this critic has the hard and fast policy of not reading a book until after the movie comes out, strictly, this will be a review of the film and its story alone. Jeff Stockwell and David Paterson (son of the author Kate Paterson) have adapted the book for direction by Gabor Csupo. Young actors Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb take the leading roles as Jesse Aarons and Leslie Burke, two sixth graders who become fast friends with an imaginary world they create to protect themselves from the woes of their real, pre-teen lives. Brought to us by the same Disney® and Walden Media® partnership that released The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe which was brilliantly adapted, written, and cast, those unfamiliar with Bridge to Terabithia and relying exclusively on the preview will be disappointed instantly for they may get the impression this is another tale of kids who travel to a spectacular world of fantasy, battle incredible characters, and emerge victorious. Not so. Rather, it is an entirely different sort of story one that, quite arguably, is not for kids at all, especially not little kids. Instead, the story might well serve grown-ups better for it illustrates, in an extremely tragic way, the problem with our cultural evolutionary history which has adults all but completely abandoning everything that makes life worth living by the time we must grow up and get serious with life. Why must we all be so stuffy and driven? What happens to play time and nap time and why cannot these be preserved? Why must every aspect of our imagination be walled off from our daily existence to the point where we lose touch with fantasy and child-like enthusiasm to drone forward with our preoccupations to our occupations? Well, something to think about anyway.
The story is about Jesse, a boy with four sisters: three older and mostly nasty ones and one younger, annoying tag-along. His father (Robert Patrick) works at a hardware store and tends vegetables in a greenhouse to supplement the meager family income. The weak financial state of the family is a constant burden on Jesse's mind. He confronts this head on day one of the new school year when he is forced by his mother to wear his sister's hand-me-down Adidas® shell toes with pink stripes and pink spotted laces over his strenuous objections and his father's support. The family simply has no money for new shoes for him. He takes a black marker to the pink hoping to make them look less like 'girl shoes' with marginal success. Later that day, in the foot race of his life, he, in his 'new' shoes is defeated by a few steps by a new girl, Leslie whose family has just moved in next door to him. At first, he's furious with her. As the weeks go by, however, the two forge a bond of deep friendship, as Leslie works to convince him she's not so bad. It turns out, they do have much in common. While Leslie's family is well off, her parents are writers, she has no siblings and when they are writing, they apparently pay nearly zero attention to her. Jesse becomes smitten with her Tomboyesque nature, though his deeper crush is on the fascinating music teacher at school, Ms. Edmonds (Zooey Deschanel). Shortly after becoming friends and navigating the school bus and playground politics run mostly by an ogre of an 8th grade girl called Janice (Lauren Clinton) whose nastiness and greediness include shaking girls down for money or Twinkies® for the rights to use the school yard restroom, Jesse and Leslie invent an imaginary world in the forest, a rope swing ride across a small stream from where there they live. They happen upon an abandoned tree house and work to convert it into a magical place where they can escape the burdens or loneliness of their home lives. Leslie names the magical kingdom Terabithia and claims them King and Queen. Their adversary will be the Dark Lord who assigns any number of creatures to play foul with them and try to scare them away. Here, in Terabithia, they are free to just be kids, shed the cloaks of adolescence, and allow their imaginations to run wild. Leslie will prove herself to be a remarkable friend teaching Jesse a powerful lesson of learning to keep his mind open to all of the possibilities. Unfortunately, a terrible tragedy will strike this pair and force one of them to deal with unparalleled grief. It must be up to each and every parent or guardian to decide if his or her children are of the proper age to know how to deal with this tragedy. The responsibility of this decision should not be taken lightly.
Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb have done a fantastic job with their roles. Old enough, but not too old, the pair manage to capture precisely the mixed up emotional states of pre-teens as society has taken to fast track them to adulthood. Increasingly the responsibilities they must take on advance, while they still want to play and just be kids deep down. They make for a wonderful on-screen pair full of emotional light. As seems to be the case with far, far too many of these stories, most of the time the parents are doormats or harsh disciplinarians constantly seeking to get their children's heads out of the clouds. Worse though, is the depiction of the pre-teens in school. Are pre-teens the way they are today because they read books about how they are supposed to be, or are they naturally all like this? Is there a bully in every school? If so, why don't school administrators collectively work to rid their schools of these kids because, according to nearly every book on the age group, they do nothing but make the lives of all the other kids miserable. Jesse is constantly picked on by two boys who knock him down and make fun of him. In typically unaware fashion, teachers always blame the kid who is getting picked on for being a disruption. Is this storybook fodder made up to create conflicts, or is it true? If so, again, why don't the adults do something about it? Do they perceive this playground warfare as a rite of passage, where they the bullies now grown up and in charge? Were they the bullied now grown up and feeling that's the only thing that toughened them up? What kind of sickness is it to allow school bullies to prevail until some kid in the school finally stands up to him or her knocking him or her down a few pegs? Yet, this theme has been written over and over again to the point of self-fulfilling prophecy. The only adult role in the film with much depth is that of the music teacher, Ms. Edmonds. Zooey Deschanel portrays her with an understanding that music can serve as the 'escape' from the traditional work of their school lives. This seems to be the only time the kids in the classroom are ever enjoying being there. Ultimately, Bridge to Terabithia provides a faithful portrayal of the complexities of living the life of a pre-teen with all of the requisite baggage of maturational expectations and hormonally driven odd choices, but with a blast of devastating reality that forces learning to cope with tragedy at an early age. Things get a bit cloudy on message due to so much reliance on clichés and repeat characters. There is much to be learned from a grown-up perspective, however, and that might be the greater value of the film.
The story is about Jesse, a boy with four sisters: three older and mostly nasty ones and one younger, annoying tag-along. His father (Robert Patrick) works at a hardware store and tends vegetables in a greenhouse to supplement the meager family income. The weak financial state of the family is a constant burden on Jesse's mind. He confronts this head on day one of the new school year when he is forced by his mother to wear his sister's hand-me-down Adidas® shell toes with pink stripes and pink spotted laces over his strenuous objections and his father's support. The family simply has no money for new shoes for him. He takes a black marker to the pink hoping to make them look less like 'girl shoes' with marginal success. Later that day, in the foot race of his life, he, in his 'new' shoes is defeated by a few steps by a new girl, Leslie whose family has just moved in next door to him. At first, he's furious with her. As the weeks go by, however, the two forge a bond of deep friendship, as Leslie works to convince him she's not so bad. It turns out, they do have much in common. While Leslie's family is well off, her parents are writers, she has no siblings and when they are writing, they apparently pay nearly zero attention to her. Jesse becomes smitten with her Tomboyesque nature, though his deeper crush is on the fascinating music teacher at school, Ms. Edmonds (Zooey Deschanel). Shortly after becoming friends and navigating the school bus and playground politics run mostly by an ogre of an 8th grade girl called Janice (Lauren Clinton) whose nastiness and greediness include shaking girls down for money or Twinkies® for the rights to use the school yard restroom, Jesse and Leslie invent an imaginary world in the forest, a rope swing ride across a small stream from where there they live. They happen upon an abandoned tree house and work to convert it into a magical place where they can escape the burdens or loneliness of their home lives. Leslie names the magical kingdom Terabithia and claims them King and Queen. Their adversary will be the Dark Lord who assigns any number of creatures to play foul with them and try to scare them away. Here, in Terabithia, they are free to just be kids, shed the cloaks of adolescence, and allow their imaginations to run wild. Leslie will prove herself to be a remarkable friend teaching Jesse a powerful lesson of learning to keep his mind open to all of the possibilities. Unfortunately, a terrible tragedy will strike this pair and force one of them to deal with unparalleled grief. It must be up to each and every parent or guardian to decide if his or her children are of the proper age to know how to deal with this tragedy. The responsibility of this decision should not be taken lightly.
Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb have done a fantastic job with their roles. Old enough, but not too old, the pair manage to capture precisely the mixed up emotional states of pre-teens as society has taken to fast track them to adulthood. Increasingly the responsibilities they must take on advance, while they still want to play and just be kids deep down. They make for a wonderful on-screen pair full of emotional light. As seems to be the case with far, far too many of these stories, most of the time the parents are doormats or harsh disciplinarians constantly seeking to get their children's heads out of the clouds. Worse though, is the depiction of the pre-teens in school. Are pre-teens the way they are today because they read books about how they are supposed to be, or are they naturally all like this? Is there a bully in every school? If so, why don't school administrators collectively work to rid their schools of these kids because, according to nearly every book on the age group, they do nothing but make the lives of all the other kids miserable. Jesse is constantly picked on by two boys who knock him down and make fun of him. In typically unaware fashion, teachers always blame the kid who is getting picked on for being a disruption. Is this storybook fodder made up to create conflicts, or is it true? If so, again, why don't the adults do something about it? Do they perceive this playground warfare as a rite of passage, where they the bullies now grown up and in charge? Were they the bullied now grown up and feeling that's the only thing that toughened them up? What kind of sickness is it to allow school bullies to prevail until some kid in the school finally stands up to him or her knocking him or her down a few pegs? Yet, this theme has been written over and over again to the point of self-fulfilling prophecy. The only adult role in the film with much depth is that of the music teacher, Ms. Edmonds. Zooey Deschanel portrays her with an understanding that music can serve as the 'escape' from the traditional work of their school lives. This seems to be the only time the kids in the classroom are ever enjoying being there. Ultimately, Bridge to Terabithia provides a faithful portrayal of the complexities of living the life of a pre-teen with all of the requisite baggage of maturational expectations and hormonally driven odd choices, but with a blast of devastating reality that forces learning to cope with tragedy at an early age. Things get a bit cloudy on message due to so much reliance on clichés and repeat characters. There is much to be learned from a grown-up perspective, however, and that might be the greater value of the film.
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Click for 'Review Lite' [a 150-word review of this film]
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Other Projects Featuring Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
Cast Members
Josh Hutcherson
• AnnaSophia Robb • Zooey DeschanelRobert Patrick
Director
Gabor Csupo
Co-Screen Writers
Jeff Stockwell
• David Paterson| Book | CD Soundtrack | DVD |
| Related Book | VHS | Related DVD |
Bridge to Terabithia (2007) Review-lite [150-word cap]
Jeff Stockwell and David Paterson have adapted David's mother's novel, Bridge to Terabithia for direction by Gabor Csupo. Young actors Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb take the leading roles as Jesse Aarons and Leslie Burke, two sixth graders who become friends via an imaginary world they create to protect themselves from the woes of their real, pre-teen lives. Those unfamiliar with Bridge to Terabithia and relying on the preview will be disappointed to find this is not about kids traveling to a spectacular world of fantasy, battling incredible characters, and emerging victorious. Quite arguably, this is not for kids at all, especially not little kids. Instead, the story serves grown-ups better for it illustrates, in an extremely tragic way, the problem with our cultural evolutionary history which has adults all but abandoning everything that makes life worth living by the time we must grow up and get serious with life.
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