Jasper Jones – Photograph by David Dare Parker
It’s been eight years since Fremantle author Craig Silvey’s novel Jasper Jones hit the shelves and was devoured with equal adoration by both critics and the public.
If he’s been a little quiet since, I hear it’s because Silvey has spent the intervening years crafting and honing that remarkable novel into a tight, twisty hour-and-45-minute screenplay.
Read more at WAtoday.
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While the cinematography was great, the multi-stranded narrative was disjointed and the acting largely devoid of emotional impact. 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. Overall, a bit disappointing.
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/
I would agree that the narrative is a bit overwhelmed – it’s a lot to try to get into a movie – but I wouldn’t agree with CineMuseFilms that the story “skips lightly” over racism and country town small-mindedness – I would say these things are confronted throughout!