By Calder Stenn, Editor-in-Chief
During Andy Muschietti’s film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel It, you’ll float too, but not in the same way Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgård) makes his child victims float.
While Pennywise disappears innocent children into his fortress below the Barrens — the fictional town of Derry’s version of a sewage system — the group of ragtag protagonists known as “The Losers’ Club” will disappear any doubts about their acting capabilities as young teenagers (some of which are debuting in their first film).
In fact, for all the hype that Skarsgård receives for his role as the film’s carnivorous clown, he does not even approach the acting level of some of the kids — specifically Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), Eddie (Jack Dylan Grazer), and Richie (Finn Wolfhard, A.K.A. Mike from Stranger Things).
Bill, motivated by the mysterious disappearance of his younger brother Georgie (spoiler alert if you haven’t watched the trailer), finds himself at the helm of The Losers’ Club. As with all other members of the club, he has his own special claim to loser-hood with his stutter. In addition, Eddie is a hypochondriac — a role which he plays to perfection — while Richie gives off the persona of a 1980s meme-lord: edgy and ridiculously funny.
Although the rest of the team — Beverley (Sophia Lillis), Ben (Jeremy Ray Taylor) and Stanley (Wyatt Oleff) — play a significant role, it is the aforementioned trio that really injects the most life into what could otherwise be a generic horror film.
The trio plays off each other so well that it is sometimes easy to forget Muschietti’s adaptation falls under its respective genre. Pretty much any scene with Richie and/or Eddie — yes, even occasionally when they are attacked by It — is guaranteed laughter from the audience.
Bill’s character does well to tip the scales a little bit, adding a somber mood in order to ground the movie back into King’s disturbing but iconic vision of the narrative. Lieberher’s emotionally driven performance is near-unprecedented, especially considering how young an actor he is.
On the sinister side of this cast lies a very under-hyped gem in Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton). It could be argued that Bowers is as scary if not scarier than Pennywise. Everything he does epitomizes an outsider’s nightmare of a bully, a real-life conflict which is much more relatable to the audience.
Another surprising antagonist is Mr. Marsh, Beverley’s father, who is maniacal and abusive and almost as frightening as Pennywise and Bowers. In fact, all of the parents — each with their own antagonistic tendencies — are really just pawns integrated to emphasize one of King’s primary themes of youth versus fear and how adults tend to be immune to the things going on inside a child’s mind (the movie was set in its respective time period for this reason; parents are seen as being more involved nowadays). Furthermore, the lack of any major adult figure in the movie allows the audience to focus solely on the development of The Losers’ Club and how they grow up as a collective unit.
Aside from the acting and moderately profound thematic conflicts, there is not a lot else to differentiate It from the average horror movie.
The jumpscares for the most part are pretty predictable (although my friend Sasha would strongly disagree), and the plot is also fairly unoriginal with the exception of a couple minor twists that aren’t noteworthy enough to win the audience over in that regard. Even Pennywise is fairly predictable at times. Basically whatever demeanor Pennywise gave off in the trailer is how he acts in the movie; he doesn’t do a lot of unexpected things (although his manipulation of certain characters adds a fascinating depth to his horrific capabilities).
The overall plot of the movie was consistently captivating throughout, especially since the fictionalized setting of Derry, Maine, creates an atmosphere comparable to the hit Netflix series Stranger Things. The only noticeable flaw was the overwhelming pace of the movie, but that is inherent in any horror movie.
The first time I saw this movie, I personally felt that the fast-moving plot truncated screen time that should have been used for character development, creating very rough transitions between certain scenes. However, in my second viewing, I realized that Muschietti was only trying to enhance the extremely tense atmosphere of the adaptation by integrating Pennywise into as many as scenes as possible.
I will shamefully admit that I have only started reading the book, so I can’t really give my piece of mind on how the movie shapes up to the book, but I will say that at times I felt there were unanswered questions. I can’t pinpoint anything in particular sans spoilers, but there were definitely some characters who were introduced early on but then seemed forgotten or insignificant throughout the rest of the movie.
Obviously it is quite difficult for directors to satisfy all the details in a visual interpretation of a literary piece, but some of these unanswered details seemed like very minute things that could have been fixed with a couple extra scenes in the film.
Despite the movie’s shortcomings, It is a fairly decent horror flick and does no disservice to its corresponding novel. In a year where Jordan Peele’s Get Out set a new bar for the genre, Muschietti’s horror film isn’t far off. In fact, if you can appreciate its subtle uniqueness, you might just float too.
4 out of 5 stars