It-2017
Director Andres Muschietti
Starring Bill Skarsgård, Jaeden Lieberher
Scott’s Review #684
Reviewed September 20, 2017
Grade: A-
An enormous hype has gone into the first big-screen adaptation of the epic-length 1986 Stephen King novel, It.
An above-average mini-series based on the book was released in 1990, but the film version is much more effective.
Officially entitled It: Chapter One (2017), it divides the story in half, focusing only on the characters as children, not as adults decades later.
The film is highly effective, with a fantastic story, visuals, cinematography, and a rocking musical score. Simply put, it is one of the better Stephen King film adaptations.
As rabid Stephen King readers will understand, at over eleven hundred pages long and spanning thirty years, a two-hour and fifteen-minute film can’t capture the author’s artistic vision.
To be determined is how chapter two will measure up to the glory of the first chapter.
Derry, Maine, is the sleepy little town where the action takes place. The period is 1988, but the novel takes place in the late 1950s.
On a stormy afternoon, seven-year-old Georgie takes a paper boat, constructed by his older brother Bill Denbrough, outside to see if it sails. He meets a clown in the storm drain, who introduces himself as “Pennywise the Dancing Clown.”
Pennywise toys with Georgie, then turns vicious and tears off the boy’s arm.
Months later, life goes on as Bill and his group of friends, known as “The Losers Club,” each begins to see variations of Pennywise.
The film blends a teenage summer adventure with a terrifying horror film, and director Andres Muschietti achieves this mixture seamlessly.
Lighting is one example of how the film achieves this.
Most of the outdoor sequences are bright, sunny, and airy. Conversely, the terrifying scenes, usually involving the entity of Pennywise, are shot using dark lighting, eliciting fear and a perfect mood.
The casting is terrific—I specifically found actor Jaeden Lieberher as Stuttering Bill, Jeremy Ray Taylor as Ben Hanscom, and actress Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh to be wonderful performers and clear standouts among the teenage characters.
Lillis, bright-eyed and with a strong-willed composure, resembles a young Scarlett Johansson and could have a bright future ahead of her. Lieberher’s earnestness and stuttering feel believable, and his innocence reminds me of every kid.
Lastly, Taylor fills a pudgy new kid in town, Ben, with comedy and romanticism in his unrequited love for Bev.
Thriving is the portrayal and appearance of the demonic entity Pennywise. With the fictional clown having over thirty years of interpretation and imagination, bringing him to life on screen was challenging.
The risk would have been making him either too horrific or cartoon-like- the result is a perfect hybrid.
Bill Skarsgård exudes crazy in his brilliant performance, teetering between goofy and playful with Georgie and evil personified as he taunts and terrorizes the kids in his dusty hideaway.
Interestingly, none of the adult characters are written sympathetically. From the creepy Alvin Marsh to the nerdy pharmacist, even the stern librarian and the overbearing Mrs. Kaspbrak are each laden with an unlikable quality.
The closest adult to being “nice,” Bill’s father, finally screams at his son to accept the fact that Georgie is dead.
Two small complaints include the two secondary bullies—the King Bully Henry Bowers’ cohorts are not given their comeuppance and vanish from the screen, never to be mentioned again.
Secondly, the sound exterior shots of Derry, Maine, exude a New England freshness and a small-town mystique. It’s too bad the scenes weren’t filmed in Maine at all, but somewhere outside Toronto, Canada—more realism would have been nice.
Due to the massive success of the adapted film, legions of fans will undoubtedly hold their breath waiting for the resurrection of Pennywise and “It” to be unleashed on film fans everywhere- probably in 2019.
I will be one of those fans.
