Nostalgia Del Pasado

What can I say, they've made another great Stephen King story into another great movie. Although it doesn't hurt to have the likes of Anthony Hopkins in your film to give it that stature and elegance. This film is one of those movies where you leave sad, but yet feeling good about everything, not many movies do this, some would include American Beauty and The Green Mile. The film is set in the backdrop of the 1960's where a strange man (Anthony Hopkins) moves into the apartment above a young boy and his mother. The boy quickly befriends the stranger and soon learns about the man's mysterious gift. I won't spoil anything for anyone because this is definitely a movie worth seeing and not knowing what happens before you go into it. Also I recommend reading the book, it is truly one of Stephen King's best.

Stephen King seems to work well with movies. HEARTS IN ATLANTIS represents the latest adaptation from one of King's novels. Actually borrowing from two stories, it introduces us to a young boy named Bobby Garfield who seems to be living a semi-normal, although simple life. His day consists of playing with his two best friends, Sully and Carol. His relationship with Carol is on the fence of being romantic. Bobby's widowed mother is too focused on her career to notice what's going on with her son. A strange man named Ted Brautigan (Hopkins) comes to their small town looking for a place to stay, and finds a vacant room within Bobby's house. Brautigan almost immediately intrigues Bobby, offering the young boy a job simply reading the newspaper out loud. As these two bond, Bobby notices his new friend has some strange traits. Ted fears that mysterious men are looking for him. It's not long before Bobby realizes that his new friend has some unique capabilities, and begins to understand why others would be looking for him. In the meantime, Bobby deals with his own desire for a dream bike, his need to protect Carol from neighborhood bullies, and his confusion about his mother's lack of finances despite her fancy dress collection. No one is perfect in this story, just like in real life. Even the oddly endearing Brautigan seems reluctant to expose his true roots.

HEARTS IN ATLANTIS is a simple tale that offers nothing new to audiences. It doesn't have the magic exhibited in THE GREEN MILE, or the emotional importance of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION, and although it's similar in feel to STAND BY ME, it doesn't seem to match the quaint aspects of that tale either. Where it succeeds is in it's ability to present the familiar aspects of the youth we've all experienced. Childhood memories are what make us who we are. This film helps us to remember those special times. While not all of us met a Ted Brautigan in our lives, we can all relate to the troubles Bobby faces, or even the victimization Carol endures by bullies. There are several familiar elements here, and that's why it works. Hopkins is appealing, as one would expect, but the film as a whole plays out in a very tame fashion. Scott Hicks (SHINE) has directed HEARTS with simplistic and appropriate fashion. He never assumes too much from the audience, which is an admirable quality for a director. What you walk away with is a understanding that youth can define you future, and memories can have a profound effect toward your outlook on life. Never judge a book by it's cover.

One of the many acting skills Anthony Hopkins possesses is the ability to attract and disturb at the same time; he can charm you to no end with sly smiles and unspoken allure. But all the while he's hiding something unsettling that you can't ever quite figure out. In Hearts in Atlantis, the latest of what by now must be a truly massive box set of Stephen King film adaptations, Sir Anthony finds a writer perfectly suited to these unique talents. What we see is a movie eerie and enchanting, both in mood and in style -- a story that holds onto its cards throughout, letting you see each of them slowly, one by one, and only when absolutely necessary. In the end we find we have been held captive by a stunningly memorable and powerful film.

The story begins as a retrospective: Robert Morse plays the older version of Bobby Garfield, the central character of this reminiscent story. It takes a recent tragedy to send the older Bobby unwittingly in the mind to his days as an 11-year-old in 1960. There we go to a place common to almost all of King's stories: rural New England, where Bobby lives with his mother (Hope Davis), and spends his innocent, aimless days with his two friends Sully (Will Rothhaar) and Carol (Mika Boorem). His father died when Bobby was only five, and his mother is so busy hopefully tending to a real estate career that she has little time to tend to her only child. To this point nothing is out of the ordinary; this childhood is deliberately portrayed with hazy, warm undertones, akin to the sense of youth so familiar to many who look back upon it.

Fairly early on we meet Ted Brautigan (Hopkins), a boarder who shows up quite suddenly on their porch, his belongings in grocery bags. He is clean, well-spoken, unobtrusive and generally a placid sort. But he is also an instant enigma: he is of unknown origin, means, and intent, and Bobby's mother quickly decides this is a man to be viewed with caution. Bobby, on the other hand, innocently curious --and most likely desperate for anything that could spell the boredom of his uneventful summer-- decides this a man worth knowing. They become close, Brautigan dispersing kennels of wisdom and even offering young Bobby a dollar a week and cold root beers to read him the newspaper daily. But Brautigan clearly has a special quality about him: he can sense things and see things that are not readily apparent to most others. Bobby seems to have this gift as well, though in a lees pronounced way, and through this they form a bond, one Bobby's mother slowly and begrudgingly affords him. She's suspicious of this man still, while we the viewers begin gradually to glean some of the mysteries of his past. I don't dare say what they are, but they do involve "the Low Men", people, Brautigan warns Bobby, who may some day come looking for him. He tells Bobby what signs to look for about town, gently using the boy as a scout of imminent danger. Bobby does not know who they are or what they represent. Neither do we, for a long time, but the key instrument of this story is to make it intentionally vague. We are not to be concerned about these details, but rather to know that Brautigan has experienced them, and will do whatever he can to shield Bobby and his youth from the corrupting darkness looming behind them.

Stephen King has been widely read as an author of horror and suspense, but his best works --like this one-- work on a much more insidious level, evoking a sense of foreboding and unknown that manages to inform everything that happens within. The makers of this film find great success emphasizing the shady murkiness of the story, and they still manage to keep things centered. The mysteries of Ted Brautigan find parallels in the wonders of youth: Bobby experiences his first kiss, naturally, encounters a menacing bully, and learns to view his mother in evolving ways...grown-up ways. This is really a story of innocence and maturity, of youth's purity and the dangers that lurk at its end. Bobby finds that end to a certain degree, but along the way finds friendship, knowledge, and a sense of the mysteries of adulthood that await him. Ted Brautigan is really more than a friend to Bobby; he is a guide, a protector, and a teacher. These two actors provide real, natural on screen chemistry in this film, and there is one delightful scene early on where Brautigan intensely relives for Bobby a glory day of Chicago Bears football lore. This is an actor who can take any available strengths of writing and magnify them for us viewers who watch him say them aloud. As a result Anthony Hopkins anchors this infectious little film to the ground while still allowing it to soar skyward when needed.

For some, Stephen King is just a mere auteur of horror stories. If you look closer, you'll see he is much more. Nearly all his stories are melancholic tales about the loss of childhood innocence. With a paranormal twist, but that really isn't the most important. I even think that Hearts in Atlantis would have worked even better, if the whole paranormal thing would have been left out. The most interesting aspects of the story are Bobby Garfield and his relationship with his mother, girlfriend and Ted. Whenever Ted brought up the low-men, my personal interest curve got a bit of a dip, but hey it's a Stephen King movie, I guess we'll have to live with it.

As it is, Hearts in Atlantis remains a wonderful film. It's the kind of film where the scenes in the present are filmed in gloomy blue and grey tones, and all the flashbacks get a golden sepia treatment. Sure it's been done before, but rarely have the effects been of such a shattering beauty.

Anthony Hopkins, never shy of giving a bombastic performance, is remarkably soft-spoken in this one, though I doubt that he was really interested in this movie. The star of the show, however, is Anton Yelchin as Bobby Garfield. He looks like the young Elijah Wood, with the same angelic blue eyes, and he's truly captivating. He even has genuine chemistry with the girl that plays his love interest. A big fat ‘wow' is in order here, let's hope he'll get the chance to exploit his talents further.

It's a shame this movie failed at the box-office, but then again so did The Shawshank Redemption. So let's all rent/buy this wonderful film, and boost that IMDb score.

I gave this one a 9/10.

There are two distinct dimensions to Stephen King's writing. On the one hand he is most widely known as the horror meister who can churn out novels quicker than most of us can go through toilet paper. Then there is the King who knows when to leave the schlock behind and tell a good, character driven, yarn.

This is the King who penned Hearts in Atlantis, along with similar captivating stories turned into film such as Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile.

Told in flashback, it is the story of a young boy who is mentored by a psychically gifted border (Hopkins) with a shadowy past who is renting the upstairs room in his mother's house. He instructs the boy to be on the lookout for the "low men" who are persuing him. It tells the story of lives and loves lost in the fleeting wonder of youth. Filled with metaphor, this is a gem of a film. View it for the acting. View it for the cinematography. View it for the art direction. View it for the directing. But most of all, view it for the wonderful story that it is. It will captivate you and leave you wishing it would go on forever.