March
06
Tags
Jasper Jones (2017)
The classic Aussie country town thriller is a genre of its own with familiar ingredients that vary only in how they are mixed. Jasper Jones (2017) nestles into this space, blending a coming-of-age melodrama, romantic-comedy and a thriller mystery. By throwing in every genre ingredient it found in the pantry, success might seem assured … but maybe not.
The plot is drawn from the 2009 book of the same name. Thirteen year-old Charlie Bucktin is awakened one night by local Aboriginal bad-boy Jasper Jones who pleads for help in hiding a body. They swear secrecy in order to keep Jasper out of jail and set about discovering who is responsible. That’s the simple narrative path, with excitement provided by several sub-plots along the way, all of which will be familiar. The boys suspect reclusive old Mad Jack Lionel but their sleuthing exploits produce unexpected results; Charlie’s love-object is the mysterious Eliza whose family harbours dark secrets; best friend Kevin aspires to join a local cricket club that does not want immigrants; and Charlie’s high-strung parents are struggling in their marriage. All in all, it’s a typical Aussie country town with the usual list of caricatures.
Genre mashups can work well provided their elements cohere and the acting can carry the story, neither of which happens in this film. The separate sub-stories feel like a potpourri of disconnected ideas, many of which are left dangling unresolved. The titular Jasper Jones is little more than a background character who provides narrative continuity and a token symbol for racial tension. Charlie is the principal character and it is through his eyes we see the dysfunctionality of the town, his family, and his relationships. The film covers a lot of ground with a broad brush, touching everything lightly without penetration or depth.
For a story that deals with a gruesome tragedy as seen through innocent eyes, the film is remarkably free of emotion. The boys, for example, view the corpse with as much disdain as if it were an insect; Charlie’s crush limps from scene to scene without sign of a raised heartbeat; and Eliza’s mother learns the sinister truth with barely a grimace. In one scene, Charlie is punished for a minor disobedience by being forced to do something which defies logic, then the story moves on as if it never happened or was part of an absurdist Gothic tale. Charlie’s mother is the only character who shows any emotional range at all, but she is unstable and behaviourally extreme.
Jasper Jones has great cinematography that captures the iconic elements of outback Australia plus a stellar cast of Australian actors. Some have compared this film with To Kill a Mockingbird, a comparison that cannot seriously be sustained in a story that skips lightly over racism and country town small-mindedness. To keep its child-friendly rating, it also brushes over issues like suicide, marital infidelity, sexual abuse, and the persecution of difference. Despite several charming moments, the film struggles to be more than a moderately engaging montage of life in a dysfunctional Aussie outback town.
Director: Rachel Perkins
Stars: Hugo Weaving, Angourie Rice, Toni Collette, Levi Miller
CineMuseFilms 
I just checked Goodreads and the book has 15,901 ratings, including 1,896 written reviews, giving an overall score of 4.05 out of a possible 5.0 – – – so it looks as if this one where I may eschew* the film for the book (* only thrown in there to make me look like a literary genius).
LikeLiked by 1 person
As you know, there is a world of difference between ink on paper and the audio-visual format. A book is such a liberated medium with so much scope to imagine whatever you like. Film is so finite and unforgiving in so many ways. It seems to me that this film adaptation tried too hard to do too much, and fell too short. I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts if you both read the book and see the film.
LikeLiked by 1 person
So much to do . . . so little time 🙂 Let’s see what happens. But that is so true. Some of my grand-children are not great readers and tell me, “that’s okay, I’ll just wait for the film”. I try to explain that if they do that, they are allowing someone else to dictate to them their interpretation rather than allow their own imagination to decide what the author is conveying. How big is big? How green is green? etc etc. But they just shrug. Sigh . . . .
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just saw the film recently, not having read the book. I agree that it struggled to have a solid core to the story, a mish mash of events and restrained emotions that may or may not have been interlinked. Nevertheless, overall I did enjoy it, for what it was.
I particularly agree with the above comment re the film lacking emotion and the examples cited. Another one could be the running gag about whether one would prefer a hat full of spiders vs fingers as penises (or similar words). Now …… I could almost buy that kind of conversation by 13 year olds today, but it simply sounded jarringly unrealistic when used in the film – first between the boys , then later between Charlie and Liza. There is NO WAY two 12 year olds in 1969 of the opposite sex in repressed rural Australia could blandly have a conversation involving the word “penis” or even the concept of it, and without reacting to it in an embarrassed way, especially if one looked at the four parents involved and how liberal they would have been in raising their kids – not!
I thought the film had superb production design and period feel down to the little things around the house, but for a film set in rural WA over Christmas and New year, at no time did I get the sense anyone was actually uncomfortable or HOT. No insects on the sound track, nobody really sweated, it all seemed very wintry even.
And one amusing thing I noticed. If you stay all the way to the end of the end credits, you will see a lovely text credit given to the famous mid 20th century author “Earnest” Hemingway – possibly related to Ernest Hemingway, not sure??
LikeLiked by 2 people
Wonderful observations and comments with which I concur entirely. Thank you.
LikeLike
Pingback: Jasper Jones (2017) | CineMuseFilms | Rogues & Vagabonds
I quite enjoyed the film, and was happy to support it at the box office given it’s Australian and with a female director. I do think that there are so many themes and ideas going on here that the narrative does feel a bit overwhelmed. See my full review here https://scribblesofstageandscreen.com/2017/04/14/jasper-jones-entertaining-australian-coming-of-age-story/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lovely to hear from you JoBradley. I also enjoyed it, but obviously not as much as you did. I also enjoyed reading your review. It is a common directorial fault to take on more than the story needs or can accommodate, and you are right that the “narrative does feel a bit overwhelmed”. My heart supports all Australian film, but my brain remains commited to reviewing them on equal footing with global cinema.
LikeLiked by 1 person