Review: Bridge to Terabithia

Well, I finally watched it.  This movie has scored high marks with the mom and kid crowd since it came out a couple of years ago.  I was visiting a single mom friend of mine.  She and her daughter insisted that I watch the movie with them.  The first 3/4 of the movie droned along following the plight of two kids who spent most of their days in school avoiding bullies who seemed to be irresistibly drawn to these two misunderstood targets.  Those they could not avoid made their lives miserable to the point of sadistic psychosis.

"The blonde chick ... is mysterious and a tad quirky but seems to be uncommonly self-possessed and confident."

One day they (boy and girl) traipsed through the woods and happened across a rope swing dangling above a small stream.  They swing across and enter an imaginative world

of dark kings, bizarre creatures and an abandoned tree house recreated by their imaginations into a 'Swiss Family Robinson' fabulous abode.

As the story goes on the boy's private conflict with a depressed and introspective father, quarreling older sisters and the idolization of his kid sister dominate the character development of the film.  The blonde chick with whom he shares the imaginary world of Terabithia is mysterious and a tad quirky but seems to be uncommonly self-possessed and confident.  As a team, they support one another as the day to day mischievousness of their bully nemesis' continues.

One day the boy is invited to a museum by his hot music teacher - hey I would definitely do her too.  He accepts and they drive off together as the infatuated boy watches to make sure he is undetected by his uninvited "best friend" as they pass by her house.  They have much fun and many laughs at the museum as his crush on teach grows. 

Late that afternoon he gets back from the museum to the alternating frantic scolding and hugs and fawning over the seemingly truant son.  His father breaks the news abruptly that his friend girl tried to cross the rope swing alone, fell, and died after hitting her head on a rock.

The remainder of the movie focuses on the boy's mending relationships with his father and the bullies at school and reconnecting with his doting younger sister.

My 'mom friend' looked at me through sagging mascara and a waning smile.

"Did you like it?", she asked with that look Spock gave the blonde alien in Star Trek when he said, "I too was.......moved."

I paused before answering.  During these times of frail innocence and open emotion from another, I feel a responsibility to allow myself and those around me to cross that emotional bridge and to, as Deacon, in 'Waiting', said, 'Leave no mental stone untoined (unturned)."

Here was my reply:
"This was supposed to be a modern tragedy.  I can see some of the trappings of tragedy but it failed the test."

The tears lay unheeded on her face as she absorbed this affront to her feelings and reaction to what she considered to be one of her favorite flicks.
"So this movie is good because it made you cry?", I asked.  "So if I slapped the dookie out of you that would make me a good boyfriend, husband or significant other?"
Yeah I know what you are thinking.  She said the same thing: "It's not the same thing, Craig."  And: "You are a dick!"

Here is the test.  If, in a tragedy, the protagonist or protagonists had lived, would the story have a happy ending?  Simple, isn't it?
"If the story is good and the writing/acting is effective, the audience will be moved naturally and acceptably."
 
In the classic "Romeo and Juliet' the two could never be together because of their social and status inequities.  If they had not died, Romeo would have ended up a military conscript or at best a tragic poet wandering aimlessly in a lonely world.  Juliet would have been betrothed to some aristocratic curmudgeon and squeezed out 3 or 4 kids.  The only way they could have been together was to die together. 
In Bridge to Terabithia, if the girl had lived, they would have grown up together, studied together and resisted the evil advances of rogue bullies together.  Both sets of parents liked the other kid so they could have done anything they wanted.  They were only slightly different economically.  I think the girl's dad made a little more money but that was not presented as an issue in the film plot. As they got older, they would have either become childhood sweethearts and gone on or had their first sexual expedition and lived out 'Lost Lagoon' or something like that. 

Killing a 12 year old girl was pointless to the story.  The boy had already opened his closed mind to the wonders of Terabithia in the first 20 minutes of the film.  He had already gone through the changes that would have been the only reason but really obscure justification for her death.  Her death in the film, is on the par with throwing a cat with a loud audio bang accompaniment to get a cheap start from an unsuspecting audience. 
"Killing a 12 year old girl was pointless to the story."

In 'The Hitcher', Dave Myers - director - ran over a jack rabbit in the opening sequence of the movie.  The gory scene had nothing to do with the story.  It was just a cheap trick to upset the audience.  If the story is good and the writing/acting is effective, the audience will be moved naturally and acceptably.

Because a movie makes you cry is not affirmation that the movie was good.  Watch the nightly news.  That kind of 'tragedy' happens every day.