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What About
Charly?
by Thomas C.
Baggaley
In light of the
recent release of Jack Weyland's Charly on video and DVD,
I have a couple of confessions to make. First off, I have never
read the book. I might be in the minority there among Latter-day
Saints of my generation, because according to an estimate published
before the film came out, over 250,000 copies of the book
had sold since it was first published in 1980. In fact, Charly
(the book) was the God's Army of LDS fiction, the first to
demonstrate there was a viable market for novels by Mormons about
Mormons. It's not that I was completely adverse to reading it. I
just never got around to it.
Part of it had to
do with the fact that during the 80's there was also a lot of interest
in LDS music - there was even an AM radio station that played LDS
music all the time - but the production values on about half of
the songs that were circulating around at the time were not up to
professional quality and probably would not have even gotten played
once if they didn't have the "LDS music" label and the
ready-made audience of members of the church who were starving for
music that they could trust. What did that have to do with the most
popular LDS book this side of the scriptures? Well, as a teenager,
although I loved to read, I just figured that the situation was
similar for LDS novels. I read a few of them, and found a couple
of them to be quite good, but I assumed that the percentages among
LDS novels were about the same as I was hearing in the music and
didn't pay much attention to most of them. Charly got ignored
along with the rest.
My second confession
gets to more to the point. Charly (the film) made me laugh
and cry. You might wonder why that's such a big confession. It wouldn't
be, except that from reading the reviews of many of the critics
who wrote about it when it first came out, including a couple of
local writers who went out of their way to criticize the film even
though they aren't usually film critics, it would appear that for
a person, especially a film critic, to let this film get to him
would be a grave sin. Writer after writer has coupled Charly
with The Singles Ward as examples of what is wrong with the
latest wave of LDS-themed theatrical-release films. I disagree.
For those of you,
who - like me - have not read the novel and - unlike me - have not
yet taken the time to see the film, Charly is the story of
Sam Roberts, an intense young man from Salt Lake City whose world
is turned upside down when he meets Charlene "Charly"
Riley, an artist from New York City who is visiting her parents
and grandmother in Salt Lake. Charly likes driving fast and having
fun. Sam likes fishing and keeps his life stored in his palm pilot.
Sam is LDS and takes his religion very seriously. Charly doesn't
seem to take anything seriously. So, of course, they're certain
to fall in love. More than a love story though, this is a story
about the impact two people have on each other. Each is a catalyst
for major changes in the way the other looks at life.
In making Charly,
director Adam Thomas Anderegg and producers Lance Williams, Micah
Merrill and Tip Boxell did a lot of things right. The first and
most obvious thing they got right was the casting of Heather Beers
in the title role. Beers is a natural as Charly. She seems so comfortable
in the role, you are just certain that Jack Weyland had her in mind
the whole time when he was writing the novel over 20 years ago.
Jeremy Elliott - one of my personal favorite LDS actors who has
also had lead roles in Out of Step and Testaments of One
Fold and One Shepherd - also brings a strong performance, and
probably would have gotten more critical acclaim if Beers weren't
so good.
The film has a professional
look and feel to it as well, belying its limited budget. Great care
is taken to details. The film is beautifully shot and framed, and
the script is well conceived. In fact, screenwriter Janine Whetten
Gilbert won an AML Award for Screenplay Adaptation for her script.
I understand that she did make a number of changes to the story
- including the adding of a new character, Charly's grandmother
- which have become some of the film's strongest points. (For those
purists who absolutely hate it when a film adaptation changes a
story they've known and loved as a novel first, it should be noted
that Weyland was consulted throughout the filmmaking process and
gave his seal of approval to these changes.)
Aaron Merrill has
also done a nice job with the film's music. Gratefully, money was
put aside for the film to have a fully orchestral score - something
that is sadly missing from many films with similar budgets. Merrill
recorded much of the music with the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra
- the same orchestra that recorded the soundtrack for The Other
Side of Heaven - and the results were worth traveling halfway
around the world to get. There are also a number of well-done pop-style
songs as well.
Of course, the film
also has weaknesses. I understand that most of these are actually
problems left over from the source material itself, although there
are occasional problems that can be attributed to the challenges
of a small budget. While Jackie Winterrose-Fullerup is fun to watch
as Charly's grandmother, Diana Dunkley is wonderful as Sam's mother
and Adam Johnson portrays a surprisingly likeable version of Charly's
old (pre-baptism) boyfriend, some of the other small roles, particularly
those of Charly's parents, come off as stiff and stereotypical,
especially when contrasted with Beers' comfortable screen presence.
Part of this is because there is nothing in the script to make them
more than stereotypical. Charly's father simply seems to hate any
boy who dates his daughter, and her mother seems to just fall in
line, also hating Sam for apparently no reason at all. After listening
to the commentary, it appears that at least part of this stiffness
was done on purpose in an attempt to contrast Charly's parents with
Sam's more down-to-earth parents, but I think this was an unfortunate
choice, because while the contrast is certainly evident, Charly's
parents come across as unreal cardboard characters, and I think
a more natural contrast would have been more effective.
Still, that doesn't
explain the strong negative reaction from several vocal critics
of the film. In the end, I think their reactions come down to the
basic sentiments of the film. This is not an action movie. It's
not a comedy. It's not really even a drama. It's kind of a romantic
comedy, but at the same time, it's different in a lot of ways. It's
not a movie that makes you stop and think. It's a movie that makes
you stop and feel. Some people don't like that. Some people do.
It's unfortunate that there has been such a strong negative reaction
to the film in some quarters. It might lead some to do as I did
with the book and assume that, in some way, this film is amateur,
that the only reason it was ever made was because of its "LDS"
label without ever seeing it. This is not an amateur film. Sure,
it has weaknesses. Its budget is not at the level of a Hollywood
studio release or even The Other Side of Heaven. But it is
still, on the whole, a well-done film. At the least, it's worth
a couple of hours of your time to form your own opinion.
Probably the greatest
endorsement the film can receive came from Jack Weyland himself,
when he reportedly indicated that he thought the movie was better
than the book. That would be a rarity indeed, which leaves me wondering
if I ought to go read the book after all. I think I'll chance it.
The DVD comes with
an impressive set of special features - probably the best special
features of any LDS-themed film DVD release to date - including
two commentary tracks with comments from a number of cast and crew
members. Even Aaron Merrill, the composer, gets involved, which
is a rarity for any DVD. Other features include "The Making
of Charly" documentary, deleted scenes, trailers, and excerpts
from the music soundtrack.
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News to note: 20th
Century Fox's 1940 production "Brigham Young" will be
released on DVD and in a newly packaged video on 15 July 2003. It
was made with a rather large production budget for the time: $2.7
million and was one of the biggest movies of the year. The film
starred Academy Award-winner Dean Jagger as Brigham Young, along
with Tyrone Power (The Sun Also Rises), Linda Darnell (The Mark
of Zorro) and Vincent Price as Joseph Smith. Jagger actually joined
the church about thirty years later.
Although some have
expressed disappointment in some historical inaccuracies and the
way the film portrayed Brigham Young as a self-doubting church leader
who thought he was actually misleading his people (although the
film then turns around and suggests that he was receiving heaven-sent
inspiration all along), the prophet at the time, President Heber
J. Grant, gave it his wholehearted endorsement, and the film actually
had its premiere in 7 theaters in Salt Lake City, complete with
a parade down Main Street. (It was originally only scheduled for
one theater, but the demand for tickets was so high, the event was
expanded.) Prior to this time, if there were Mormons in Hollywood-produced
films, they were usually the villains, so this film's sympathetic
portrayal of the church was a huge step in a positive direction.
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