filmland / By Charlie Myers

Grim Subjects

Yes, the viewer is back in a grim post-apocalyptic world, and as the film unfolds the narrative is every bit as grim as The Road (the novel anyway; the film hasn’t screened locally). But this is no father/son survival tale unless, perhaps, both “father” and “son” are capitalized.

Eli, as it turns out, carries what he believes is the last copy of the Bible. Copies of that book were relentlessly destroyed shortly after the end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it event, because religion was blamed for precipitating it. An inner voice has told Eli that he must carry it west, where it is needed. He has been headed west for some 30 years, presumably since the big flash occurred, although the remnants of civilization that are shown make the catastrophic event seem more recent.

But if Eli is some sort of prophet, he is hardly a non-violent one. He seems to have channeled Clint Eastwood from his Spaghetti Western days, and since his voice has also told him he is invincible, he faces challenges both fearlessly and successfully.

The primary barrier Eli faces in completing his mission comes in the form of Carnegie (Gary Oldman), the educated but ruthless leader of a small “town” that makes pre-statehood Deadwood look like Disneyland. Carnegie has been seeking a copy of the book because he believes its words will allow him to expand his influence over people and extend his empire. It is here, as well, that Eli meets Solara (Mila Kunis, Forgetting Sarah Marshall), the young woman destined to accompany him to his final destination.

Directors Albert and Allen Hughes have created a stylish and serious Christian allegory. Washington and Oldman lend heft to the film, as does Jennifer Beals as Solara’s mother Claudia (whose blindness provides a satisfying ironic coda for Carnegie’s ambitions). The film is violent, but for the Hughes Brothers it seems restrained. I found the film’s ending rushed, weak and unsatisfying, but overall this is an effectively told tale. Rated R for some brutal violence and language. 118m. At the Broadway, Mill Creek and Fortuna.

THE LOVELY BONES: I enjoyed Alice Sebold’s popular 2002 novel when it was first released. The narrative device of having the story told by a raped and murdered teenage girl from some sort of “in-between” world, or personal heaven, seemed ripe for an excess of sentimentality, but Sebold avoids that trap by her control of the main character’s voice, which remains primarily upbeat and humorous despite the horrific event that ends her life.

In this film adaptation, director Peter Jackson (in a change of pace for him) is less successful in avoiding the sentimentality but, happily, the excellent performance by Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) as the murdered Susie Salmon undercuts Jackson’s visual excesses in the heaven sequences.

It seemed to me that Ronan perfectly captures the voice I remember from the novel, and if I was impatient with the sequences set in her heaven I was moved by the family drama that unfolded below. Intriguingly, since my relationship with the folks still on Earth was via Susie’s visits there, I became even more than usual a spectator rather than a participant. But that did not detract from the nicely understated performances by Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as Susie’s devastated parents Jack and Abigail.

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