Cynical Cinema

Alliance Films is releasing the movie adaptation of one of Canada’s most enduring and popular novels, The Stone Angel, today, September 16th. This is one of my favourite books, but it’s not the type of classic book that lends itself to a classic screenplay. And while there are certainly some good things going on in this movie, it doesn’t really work overall. Now, I’ve read Margaret Laurence’s book. So I didn’t expect gunfights and car chases and hilarious jokes. I expected a long, slow meditation on the life of Hagar Shipley full of flashbacks as she reflected on her life as an old woman. And that’s exactly what I got. With an emphasis on the “long” and the “slow”.

Ellen Burstyn is wonderful as the old, stubborn, bitter Hagar. She does a great job of conveying Hagar’s double standards in life, especially when it comes to her children. Do as I say, not as I did, and so forth. Her resistance toward the actions of her children is more of a self-loathing regret than it is good parental advice, and this comes through loud and clear in Burstyn’s performance. Also terrific are Dylan Baker as her adult son Marvin, Kevin Zegers as her adult son John, and Ellen Page as John’s girlfriend. But they all appear so briefly. Or at least it feels that way in a movie that feels far too long. It’s like listening to certain types of jazz, in that you can tell there is brilliance there, but it isn’t immediately apparent where, and even if you knew you might still be bored.

In the book, one of the most interesting and powerful scenes was a scene when Hagar, as an old woman, runs off on her son who is trying to put her in a home, and makes her way to the seaside cabin she remembers from her youth. While there, she gets drunk and has a great talk with a young man, while her past blurs with her present are we’re not even sure if she is in the right house. But for me, the most compelling part of that scene was the journey itself. The way she, as an old woman, snuck out of the house and managed to struggle her way down to this cabin. But that gets left out of the movie in favour of more flashbacks.

In the end, this movie is more skillfully made than it is interesting. There is great acting but it fails to become compelling. I can’t really think of anything (other than the getting to the cabin scene) that could have been either added or omitted for greater effect. I can’t think of how this movie could have been better done, or how it could have been better acted. And yet, I realize that is because I love the book. And I am familiar with the book to such an extent that I watch the movie from that perspective. And it becomes rather clear to me that it was made from that perspective as well. Not that The Stone Angel is too faithful to the book, but that it makes the assumption that simply running through the same scenes as the book does, with great actors to make those scenes come alive, is enough to create the same impact. And it isn’t.