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.
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!
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