It (2017) Movie Review

IT Movie Review

By Alex Bauman

It has been one of my most hyped films of the year. I finished Stephen King's novel just a couple days before finally seeing the film and overall the film is a really satisfying adaptation. It's an adaptation that respects its source material, but is still able to engage viewers who haven't read the book. That's not to say that the film is perfect, but it was consistently enjoyable from beginning to end.

Like King's novel, It follows seven children (known as the Losers' Club) living in the town of Derry, Maine in the 1980s (King's novel had these scenes set in the 1950s) who are terrorized by a shapeshifting being, but the film also largely deals with their personal fears and anxieties.

There's a lot to like about the film. The atmosphere of Derry is excellent. Like King's novel, it feels like a living, breathing character that the viewer gets immersed in rather than a disposable, interchangeable location. Similarly, the tone of King's novel is also captured quite well. Disturbing horror, dialogue-driven comedy, and coming-of-age drama all combine here in a way that doesn't feel tonally jarring. The film is often shockingly funny, though it's easy to forget that the book is full of laughs and heart as well. The film can be heartbreaking in its portrayal of young adolescents growing up. And of course, the film is pretty damn unnerving. I feel scariness is incredibly subjective so when I watch a horror film I ask myself “Does this film have anything to offer for a viewer who doesn’t find it scary?” I think It has enough going for it that it can still entertain a viewer who isn’t scared by the film.

The actors deserve a lot of credit for balancing the tones so well. The film includes one of the best groups of child actors I've seen in a long time as they each perfectly capture their novel's counterparts and feel distinguishable from one another. Jaeden Lieberher is the closest thing to a main protagonist as Bill Denbrough, a stuttering older brother who's been neglected by his parents and has a personal vendetta against "It". Lieberher previously impressed me in Midnight Special, but it was here that I really saw his talent as an actor. The film gives him plenty of scenes to shine, showing fear, sadness, anger, and happiness, but fortunately gives most of the other actors plenty of time to breathe.

Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) is probably the most recognizable child actor on display here and fortunately his character of Richie Tozier is very different from Mike Wheeler in Stranger Things. The film actually also benefited by slightly changing Richie's personality from the books while keeping the spirit of the character the same. Richie acts as the jokester/comic relief in both the book and the film, but in the book his jokes primarily come in doing impersonations of various people and stereotypes while the film has him emphasize risqué humor. The result makes Richie considerably less annoying than his book counterpart, and his jokes are generally well-timed in the context of the film itself.

Wyatt Oleff (Stan, the Jewish kid with a fear of germs that's the most skeptical of the supernatural) and Jeremy Ray Taylor (Ben, the new kid who's targeted by bullies because of his weight) do solid work with what they're given, but the MVPs would have to go to Sophia Lillis and Jack Dylan Grazer. Lillis is Beverly Marsh, the only female in the friend's group who has some of the most disturbing scenes in the film, from her bullying and slut-shaming by other classmates to her incredibly creepy father. As the character with the worst home life, Lillis balances the character's fears with her ambition, kindness, and strength in a way that makes a fully-formed character. Likewise, Jack Dylan Grazer plays Eddie Kaspbrak, a hypochondriac with an overprotective mother. Grazer perfectly captures Kaspbrak's contrasting emotions from his anxiety over his mother and the situations he's caught in to making me absolutely empathize with him as he shows fear, and even making me laugh a few times. His terrified face in one scene (see picture below) still haunts me days after watching the film.

Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie Kaspbrak

The one child actor I haven't mentioned is Chosen Jacobs as Mike Hanlon, one of the only black kids in all of Derry who lives on a farm. This leads to one of the film's biggest problems. Even if you haven't read the book, anyone who's seen the film probably noticed that Mike was sidelined. Mike was just as important as everyone else in the book, but here he feels like a token character. One of his most defining traits as the town historian is given to the character of Ben. Meanwhile, Ben's trait as the builder/architect is not given to Mike, leaving Mike without much of a personality. His backstory is likewise greatly cut down/altered. He's now an orphan so his relationship with his father is not explored. His family no longer has a feud with the Bowers family. These changes wouldn't necessarily be bad if they were replaced with something just as interesting, but instead Mike's backstory (his parents were killed in a fire) is only barely touched upon and we never feel like we actually know him that well. Jacobs actually shows hints of a solid actor, but the film never gives him a chance to actually shine.

But most people are probably seeing this for Pennywise the clown, "It's" favorite form to take. Tim Curry's performance in the 1990 miniseries is considered iconic and while I can't comment on that, Bill Skarsgard manages to give a genuinely frightening performance. His screentime is limited as it should be, but when given a chance to shine, he does. The only arguable issue is even when he's onscreen, the film sometimes feels more dedicated to visual tricks for scares when Skarsgard's acting is scary enough. As he asks "Is this not real enough for you?", he's able to convey mockery, an implication of being offended, fear, and even dark humor all at once. Of course, Pennywise shouldn't be turned into a chatterbox, but I sometimes wish the film just let him have more lines, because whenever he spoke I was horrified but engaged.

I probably could've done with a few less jump scares, especially since they didn't really demonstrate just how scary Skarsgard's performance really is. But I'll admit some of the jump scares are largely earned, particularly in the "projector scene". It already starts off creating tension and fear before the jump scare occurs and then continues to keep the scares going, so the scene doesn't feel reliant on the jump scare alone.

Some of the CGI feels a bit shoddy but it's balanced out by some scenes with really strong and creepy CGI (the deadlights). This issue should hopefully be fixed in the sequel, which will likely have a larger budget due to this film's financial success (It was budgeted at a modest $35 million and has grossed more than $500 million worldwide).

The film also had a tendency of feeling a bit rushed. Many scenes seemed to end abruptly and felt like they could've been further explored. This ensures that the film is never boring, but also leads to some missed opportunities to flesh the story out more, and even makes the characters seem a bit less intelligent. For example, in the novel, the Losers prepare to enter a creepy house by creating and bringing weapons, as well as learning more information about what they're getting into. In the film, they simply enter the house unarmed with little knowledge of what they're getting into.

There was a part of me that wished the film could've gotten more into the incredibly creepy backstory of Patrick Hockstetter, who is relegated to a largely irrelevant bully sidekick in the film. However, seeing as how many of his scenes would be borderline unfilmable and don't add anything to the main story, it's a justifiable cut, even if I'd love to see an adaptation daring enough to explore that someday. The main bully, Henry Bowers, likely could've been explored a bit more, but he does bring a menace to the scenes that he's in.

That said, other alterations to the book do work. As mentioned before, Richie's slight change in personality is welcome, the sink scene is slightly extended to be even more frightening than it was in the book, and the addition of "The flute player" (I'm not going to give more context) is surprisingly disturbing partially due to Wyatt Oleff's performance, and Betty Ripson, a character only mentioned in the novel, appears in the film in a perfect way. Some of It's forms in the book were based on horror films from the 1950s and earlier such as a werewolf wearing a blazer (I Was a Teenage Werewolf), Frankenstein's Monster, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and The Mummy. While these worked in the novel, their inclusion in the film would likely have been distracting and less scary, so replacing these was probably for the best. The change of the novel's most controversial scene (all readers of the book should know what I'm talking about) was also for the best, since it'd be unfilmable and the intended metaphor of the scene remains intact in the film.

Likewise, the film is very strong on a technical level. The cinematography from Chung-hoon Chung (cinematographer for Park Chan Wook films including Oldboy and The Handmaiden) is excellent. The ostensibly nice but truly creepy atmosphere of Derry comes out in almost every shot. This also comes out whenever director Andy Muschietti uses the camera to find unique non-jump scare ways to frighten us. You can tell their combined talents put a lot of work into making the town of Derry as faithful to King's novel as possible. And while there were a couple moments that felt a bit too dependent on the film's score, the music is largely fantastic. Benjamin Wallfisch's score helps build the terror and anxiety the characters are experiencing with the track "Deadlights" being the most evocative in my opinion.

I still believe that "It" truly needs to be an 8+ episode miniseries to be a flawless adaptation of King's novel. But as a 135-minute adaptation of half of an incredibly layered novel, there's still a lot to enjoy. While not perfect, I've enjoyed it even more upon reflection and the film's strengths ultimately greatly overshadow its problems.

Overall Rating: 9/10