Bridge to Terabithia

Bridge to Terabithia is one of those kids’ books that lots of Americans have read but which made little impact on these shores, like The Phantom Tollbooth. I had heard of it before this film came out, and knew the premise well enough to know the fantasy elements were going to be far less prominent than the trailer would have us believe, but knew little of the plot itself, never having read the novel. And now, I can safely say…that it’s total tripe, but its patronisation and proclivity for emotional manipulation aside, quite likeable.

This tired old story – kids bullied at school escape their mundane lives by creating a fantasy kingdom – really isn’t about children, but about how aging women would like to imagine children can be. I had to cringe when kids on the brink of their teenaged years were making explosion noises and incorporating trolls into their make-believe world, especially since their relationship was flirtatiously adolescent. Were they seven, perhaps this would have made sense. Not 11/12-year-olds who spend their days trying to fit in with the cool kids at school, having incredibly artificial conversations about Christianity that really shouldn’t have made the final cut (or draft of the book – simplifying Christian belief enough to dismiss several of its core elements in a handful of sentences looks fatuous even to an atheist). The boy is simple, awkward, safe for a girl to understand and malleable when a strong female is around, and the girl is better than boys at athletics, sprightly, intelligent and free-thinking, as well as very attractive. You can tell it’s a book written by a woman. The bully even becomes nice when her insecurities are exposed and the main characters show her a little bit of kindness. Pssh!

The plot meanders along without any impetus or goal, and then the inevitable twist comes at the inevitable moment, virtually signposted by the preceding scenes. Cue much emotional manipulation, putting death into a nice safe box without actually discussing it in any meaningful human way beyond that it was sad. I’m sure, however, Jung would have a thing or two to say about a boy replacing a girl he was seemingly falling for with his little sister in their escapist fantasy world…

Most of the really cringe-worthy parts were fortunately spoken by the perfect little misfit Leslie (played by the cute pixie who portrayed Violet Beauregarde in the recent Charlie and the Chocolate Factory adaptation, whose name is apparently AnnaSophia Robb), which were fortunately made palatable by the fact she was such a cute little thing. But herein was also the fundamental flaw of the film: they probably cast kids of 11 or 12 because they’re marketable amongst an age group where big crushes on cute stars can sell many a movie ticket (though why they made the boy look 9 and the girl 35 in the poster I’ve no idea), whereas the event that apparently inspired the writer happened to her son when he was 8. That would have been a much more believable age for the kids, and would have made the film, while no less cheesy and predictably written, at least more believable in character terms. Less nice to look at, though – and even beyond Robb’s teasingly wicked smile, the movie was spectacular, although why monsters that appeared only at the very end looked so much better than recurring squirrel-things I know not.

This is a movie strictly for small kids, who will think the older kids are really still just like them, and for middle-aged women who have fooled themselves into thinking their halcyon childhoods were really this twee.