Carrie White (Chloe Grace Moretz) is a quiet teen, bullied by other kids and crushed under the thumb of her ultra-religious mother (Julianne Moore).
But Carrie is growing up and discovering her power. Power which is far more literal than anyone could possibly imagine.
I am not against movies getting remakes. But when a film makes no attempts to justify its own existence, you do wonder what the point of making it was.
Based on Stephen King’s breakthrough novel, Carrie is fertile ground for a new take. And others have tried - there was a 1988 musical, and a 1999 sequel. And the 2013 iteration is not even the first straight remake - TV luminary Bryan Fuller (Pushing Daisies, Hannibal) developed a TV remake in 2002 starring Angela Bettis and Patricia Clarkson as Mrs White.
Looming over all of these adaptations and spinoffs, is Brian de Palma’s film version from 1976. I am not the biggest fan of his work - I find his style too cool for the subject matter. Carrie is the one movie of his that I have seen repeatedly, and I put it down to Sissy Spacek’s performance in the title role. She provides the shuddering, sweaty humanity that the film needs.
Watching this version, I was eager to see what this collection of filmmakers could do. But I found it almost impossible to get the 1976 version out of mind. I have not watched it in years, but this movie follows the original so closely that watching it almost felt like a close-reading exercise of all the little changes and variations on the margins of the same scenes.
There are great elements - Portia Doubleday is truly detestable as Chris Hargensen; Sue Snell’s (Gabrielle Wilde) change of heart is more organic than in the de Palma version, and Julianne Moore dials down Carrie’s mother, bringing a sadness and masochism that is distinct from Piper Laurie’s ecstatic version.
But these elements feel cosmetic while the essential structure remains unchanged.
It is a shame because every time the filmmakers deviate from or embellish upon the original film- such as making Mrs White a self-harmer - those choices make me more interested in what this movie could have been.
What made it more distracting was how familiar the movie looked. I cannot speak to the filmmakers’ intent, too many shots visually recall the ‘76 version (the slow motion of the blood falling on Carrie; the low angle shots of Mrs White following her daughter with a butcher knife).
The other problem I have with the movie’s look is the same issue I have with most big budget movies: this Carrie looks too clean and slick. The movie feels like it should be lived-in, dingier. I wanted more of a sense of life at the school, and focus on the minutiae of Carrie’s life. The movie as is sterile - I never feel immersed in this world.
In the lead role, Moretz is fine. My big issue with the movie - the lack of originality - really affected my view of her performance. Because the story was basically the same, and so many scenes were the same (including similar dialogue), that made ittough to focus on what Moretz was doing.
Sissy Spacek was so vibrant and pitiable in the original film. Moretz’s version seems to be a little bit more together and mature than Spacek’s, but I felt like the movie needed to provide more context for her.
It might also be the result of Moretz’s association with Kick-Ass, because I found it hard to believe Moretz as a wall-flower, or that she was under her mother’s thumb.
All these criticisms aside,bout midway through the movie, around the point Carrie accepts Tommy’s (Ansel Elgort) invite to prom, the movie really started to work on me.
The movie is not great but as the story heads toward the finish, I felt myself pulled back in. So even if it was all too familiar and cleaned up, the prom and conflagration kinda worked.
Ultimately, the movie falls into the same trap as Moretz’s last go at a horror remake, Let Me In. What is frustrating is that the few original elements highlight how unoriginal the rest of the script is. It is just too close to the original version to truly breathe on its own.
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