This is one of the few movies given the green light during these troubled times. I guess because it’s being billed as heartwarming and touching and all that. But actually, one of its main ingredients is that the FBI is after a guy. Now that’s scary, isn’t it? Even scarier, this movie is based on a Stephen King book. But don’t worry, King now writes many heartwarming stories of childhood and this is one of them.
In fact I felt I was watching “Stand By Me” all over again as the movie quickly heads towards a 1960 setting and is centered on three carefree kids living in a small town. The fact that we’re not in Maine made me understand there won’t be a boogeyman because Stephen King seems to only release the demons when his characters are stuck living in Maine. Anyway, our main character kid is Bobby Garfield and he lives with his Mom and hangs out with his two best friends, Carol and John. The kid has just turned eleven but the story is told in flashback, so we actually open the movie up years later when Bobby gets some news that brings him back to his old hometown and the memories flood from there.
Entering the picture very quickly is a guy by the name of Ted Brautigan, played by Anthony Hopkins. And he’s a strange one all right. He rents the upstairs of Bobby’s house and strikes up a relationship with the kid. At about this point I started to get real bored. Ted is full of writers’ quotes and some of his own homespun wisdom and that seems to be about it. Things like “your first kiss is the one by which all your others will be measured and they’ll always be found wanting”, or something like that. He’s also big on saying “and wishing will not make it so”. Okay, given that the guy is some kind of psychic I could expect him to be a bit off. But the mystic act wears on you. Does this guy say anything else besides the wise spiritual stuff?
But the kid hangs in there. I think when I was eleven if I met a guy like this, I’d either fall asleep or run away but this kid takes it all in. I guess it’s because his Dad has died and his Mom is much removed from his life. The kid who plays Bobby, and his name is Anton Yelchin, does a fair job of it, although like all kid actors I get bothered by the same “tone” form of acting they do. One voice pitch, one acting style. Remember “Bobby” from the “Brady Bunch”? Now you should get the idea. In fact, this kid has a crush on his friend Carol and it was a little like watching Bobby Brady hit on Jan Brady.
Through all of this, strangely enough, probably the most interesting character to watch is the Mom, played by Hope Davis. She’s a great meld of a repressed 1950’s housewife and a selfish, “I want it all” present day Mom. She’s sharp enough to find there’s something strange about this Ted guy and his hanging out with little kids, but she’s too self absorbed to realize she’s facing her own set of dangers. I guess it isn’t saying much for this movie if she’s the one I found myself drawn to, but that’s the way it went for me.
“Hearts in Atlantis” has a pretty good finish as the last half hour teaches everybody valuable life lessons and they’re not too soppy. But I had hoped to be drawn in more by the story and the characters. I wasn’t, and as Ted would say “and wishing will not make it so”, and so it didn’t. I give the movie a “5.0”.
