Movie bridges gaps of novel

By Dan Moore

Published Feb. 23, 2007

"Bridge to Terabithia" is a kids' movie, but you don't have to be a kid to enjoy it. Recently, this has been code for "your children won't understand the sex jokes," but this future classic achieves its broad appeal the old-fashioned way. This is a movie about human experience, tragedy and being an outsider framed by the trappings of two pre-adolescent imaginations.

The movie has been advertised as a Narnia-style fantasy with magical creatures, swords and a secret world, but the commercials are intentionally misleading. There are no wardrobes or wizard schools here; it's more closely related to "Pan's Labyrinth" with the protagonists knowingly participating in what amounts to a daydream. Two kids, penniless Jess Aaron and wealthy, quirky Leslie Burke, construct an allegory around themselves in the made-up world of Terabithia, which is located across a creek in the woods behind their houses. Within these constructs, they deal with their middle school problems of love and bullies. When tragedy strikes, Jess's grip on reality and Terabithia is shaken.

Adapted from a classic children's book, the movie manages the unique trick of improving on the book. The artificial deep-south twang of Jess and the narrator is gone and much of the '70s tripe — that creepy, misplaced depressive pseudo-idealism peculiar to the decade — has been mercifully excised. There's a discussion about God and predestination, disdainful of organized religion, that made me, an admittedly bellicose Catholic, squirm in my seat.

Only one thing has been modernized too aggressively: The movie's magic is undermined by low-shelf-life generic pop of the jangly guitar variety that is, at various times, inexplicably substituted for its score. For the most part, this is an outstandingly realized adaptation. The magic the children feel in their world is expressed with glorious, wide shots of the woods and countryside. These contrast with the fenced-in views we get of the Aarons' run-down house.

Nothing here feels artificial. Kids behave like kids and adults like adults, rather than mugging like clowns, and death and poverty are handled in realistic ways. Jess and Leslie are star-crossed lovers in that chaste, friendly way that only middle-schoolers can manage. They begin as rivals, and through Terabithia, quickly become partners in crime. Jess's family is supportive, the teachers are portrayed sympathetically and parents and teachers are presented as round characters instead of mawkish villains.

Striking in its execution and outlook and more mature than most of the "grownup" fare currently on tap, "Bridge to Terabithia" is that rare children's movie that will stay through adulthood with children lucky enough to see it instead of the latest CG farce. It doesn't pull any punches, but through the tragedy and fantasy is an optimism with which anyone who's ever felt out of place can identify.