Due vite in una

"That Was Then...This Is Now" followed the book relatively closely up until the last scenes. I thought the acting could have been better, and I think it would have been a better movie if they had left it in the time period the book was in. Despite this, I thought it was pretty good, and I liked it until the last few scenes. The book was so powerful and real in the last chapters- and the movie took all of this out. I thought it would have been a good ending- for a whole different movie, for "That Was Then...", it was wrong, and in my opinion ruined the movie.

In English class, we read S.E. Hinton's saga of teenage angst. The students were enthralled with the story. While the setting was from years past, the ethical questions raised and the teenage situations were quite apropos. The story generated a great deal of quality discussion in class...education at it's finest.

The movie, however, was a bit of a disappointment for us. Taken by itself, it was a fine example of 80's brat-packish fluff. It was formulamatic, but entertaining. One could hardly say that the movie was based on the book, though. Bryon's personal growth journey and coming of age, so well illustrated in the novel, was sacrificed to car chases and Hollywood's penchant for tidy endings, in the movie.

While I would recommend both, I would caution that they are two separate stories, sharing the same character names. Perhaps there is the lesson: You cannot watch the movie to get out of reading the book! .

That Was Then... This Is Now is one of the best early performances of Emilo Estvez as a writer and actor. Estevz brings Mark to life they way S.E.Hinton intened by being brutal and cut throat in his performace. All of the actors in the film give equally good performacnes in particular Morgan Freemen and Craig Sheffer. A underlooked gem.

That Was Then, This Is Now is the story of two working class youths who look like they are on a street to nowhere in their lives.

After his parents killed themselves, Emilio Estevez is taken in by his best friend Craig Sheffer and his mom Barbara Babcock. The two of them get in all kinds of trouble. But Sheffer is starting to think that may be if I grow up their just might be a future for him.

Estevez is carrying a lot around, many of us do and we react to it in different ways. Estevez is on the road to career criminality. He gets involved in deeper and deeper and threatens to bring Sheffer in with him if Sheffer does not heed the better angels of his nature.

The key scene is when we learn as Estevez confides to Scheffer just what it is he's carrying inside. Some of the best acting in both their careers.

Hollywood has done very well with S.E. Hinton novels. That Was Then This Is Now is right up there with Tex, Rumblefish. and The Outsiders. This one managed to get done without Matt Dillon.

I recommend it highly.

This is a very poor adaption of one of S.E. Hinton's best novels. The characterizations are quite off the mark, and there is little to no development of situations and characters. Periodically the viewer is thrown into really weak attempts at "deep", philosophical dialogue from out of nowhere - straight out of the book but oddly out of place in this disjointed film.

The acting is not much better. Only Frank Howard (as M&M) and Morgan Freeman (as Charlie) really make their roles believable. Emilio Estevez, perhaps due to the script itself, never makes Mark the character he needs to be to actually propel the story in the right direction.

All I can make of this film is an attempt at grabbing the same attention as "The Outsiders", another (and much better) film adaption of a S.E. Hinton novel. Both books/films have a few characters in common, some similar themes, and Emilio Estevez. "That was then..." just doesn't work out.