[rating=6.00]
The push/pull of Stephen King’s It was youthful nostalgia and mind-bending terror. King is a master at feeling, drawing his audience into the worlds he crafts with tendrils of emotion, utilizing his reader’s own thoughts to pull them ever closer to the horrors he’s hidden behind an expertly constructed façade. Reading It, you’re sucked into the world of your personal history; the whimsy of his cast of adolescents seamlessly recalls your own youth, allowing for narrative substitution to take place in your mind’s eye.
Andy Muschietti’s It is a perfectly fine approximation of the original King novel. It hits the plot beats it needs to, and unwinds about as expected. Anyone who’s read the novel or seen the 1990 miniseries should know about what to expect from this It, and it delivers on expectations, mostly. Unfortunately, it leans too heavily into the push of nostalgia while ultimately disregarding the pull of terror, making for an occasionally uneven effort that leaves something to be desired.
Like the novel, Muschietti’s film follows a group of seven adolescent outcasts, known collectively as the Losers Club, who discover a sinister force rising in their small town of Derry, Maine. A creature, whom they dub “It,” and who takes the form of the malignant Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgard), has been at the center of multiple cases of missing children, all of whom seem to be forgotten by most of the town. As the mystery unravels, they discover that the town of Derry has experienced tragedy, like clockwork, every 27 years. The kids then take it upon themselves to find and destroy the creature once and for all.
Here, the horror feels like an afterthought. Tonally, Muschietti relies on the tricks and tropes of the coming of age school of cinematic storytelling. There are scary moments peppered throughout, but they’re mostly ineffective jump scares that do little to add to the mystery and terror of the situation. The result is a film that’s a coming of age drama about That Magical Summer that sometimes detours into horrorish territory.
That approach will be fine for some audiences—many audiences, maybe—but for my money, the balance wasn’t struck as delicately as it needs to be in order for It to work. The terror of Pennywise is never given the proper room to breathe or grow, even with a stellar performance from Skarsgard. As a villain, he’s given no real agency; he’s just kind of there, putting a damper on an otherwise fine summer vacation.
All in all, all seven of the film’s stars are fun to watch, even if their characters never quite gel as a group. Finn Wolfhard is amazing as Richie, bringing the crew’s loudmouth new life in its 80’s setting. Jaeden Lieberher plays Bill, the group’s leader, wonderfully and quite often holds the film on his young shoulders. The real breakout is Sophia Lillis, who seems destined for superstardom in the coming years. Her Bev is nuanced and the rest of the gang, even Wolfhard, who made a giant splash in Stranger Things, seems to struggle to keep up with her talent.
Still, much of the pathos of the group has been truncated here, and the script never gives the Losers any real chance to shine. The nuances of their relationship are glossed over, and too often it feels like two of three of the kids are left with nothing to do outside of existing. It’s hard to get over the feeling like it would’ve been better if some of the characters had been combined or done away with all together.
Stan, for instance, even as good as Wyatt Oleff is in the role, rarely serves any purpose. Same with Eddie. Even though Eddie and Richie’s banter is often delightful to watch, it would have worked the same with Richie and any other character, given the woeful lack of characterization Eddie was given. Really, the only actual characterization is given to Bill, Richie, Bev, and Ben. Stan, Eddie, and Mike are all just sort of there, and never given any purpose or agency of their own. They could’ve been anyone; they could’ve been no one. So, too, with their bully, Henry Bowers, who’s sufficiently menacing without being purposeful.
A lot of this comes down to problems with the screenplay from Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, and Gary Dauberman. Fukunaga and Palmer wrote the original script back when Fukunaga was still attached to direct; Dauberman, meanwhile, was brought into to rework existing elements after “creative differences” led to Fukunaga’s departure from the project. The end result feels like a kind of patchwork of competing visions that, while decently executed by Muschietti, ultimately misses the point.
Lacking the creeping dread of the source material, It stumbles in its main purposes. It’s like getting a plate of perfectly presented spaghetti with garlic butter when you ordered marinara and meatballs. Maybe it’s delicious, but it’s not what you craved. Perhaps it has something to do with splitting the film into two parts; King’s novel follows the same group of seven, first as kids and then as adults when the evil rises again. This film deals strictly with the first half of that story.
Plans are already underway to begin production for the next half of the story, which may retroactively redeem some of the more disappointing aspects of this film. Perhaps then the lack of characterization will pay off. Perhaps they’ll pull at some thematic threads that enhance the terror of the overall tale. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
What we’ve got now, however, is a film that, while competent and mostly enjoyable, has lost much of the magic of its source material. It is a fine film that will no doubt please many, but absent the oppressive horror of the King novel the effort feels mostly moot. As good as its parts might be, the sum never quite adds up to the total of its potential.
It is now playing in theaters everywhere.
