Movie Review: 1922

1922 ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Zak Hilditch.

Written by: Zak Hilditch based on the story by Stephen King. 

Starring: Thomas Jane (Wilfred James), Molly Parker (Arlette James), Dylan Schmid (Henry James), Kaitlyn Bernard (Shannon Cotterie), Brian d'Arcy James (Sheriff Jones), Neal McDonough (Harlan Cotterie).

 

There has been a lot of talk this year about Netflix and their distribution strategy for their films – with many wishing the company would be more willing to give theatrical runs to films like Okja, The Meyerowitz Stories (New & Selected) and the upcoming Mudbound. I’m rather ambivalent about the whole situation – on one hand, I would love to see those films on the big screen, on the other, with so many films to see, it’s nice that some go to Netflix, and I can catch up with them at the same time as critics are writing about them. Netflix – and other streaming sites – are still trying to figure out the best way forward, and we’ll all have to live with growing pains. One of the things I do wish Netflix would do however is be more willing to embrace non-traditional runtimes in their films. If you don’t need to fill a half hour time slot of TV, why can’t a TV series have some episodes that run 25 minutes, and some that 45 minutes – as the story dictates? The same is true for movies. Their latest Stephen King adaptation, 1922, would have made for a killer 1 hour film – but stretched into 1 hour 40 minutes, it loses something. The novella – part of King’s Full Dark, No Stars book, the bleakest of King’s collection, was always a slow burn, but the movie is even slower – so much so that it seems like its treading water more often than not. There’s a lot of like about the film – I just think the whole thing would have been better losing at least 30 minutes, if not a little more.

 

The story focuses on Wilfred James (Thomas Jane) who in the title year, was a farmer in Nebraska – and liked it that way. He doesn’t much care for his wife, Arlette (Molly Parker) and the feeling is mutual, but it’s 1922, and you didn’t get divorced back then. The couple has a teenage son, Henry (Dylan Schmid), who like his father, likes his life on the farm. When Arlette’s father dies, he leaves her 100 acres or farm land. Wilfred wants to expand his own operations, whereas Arlette wants to sell – not just her 100 acres, but also their 90, and head to the city to open a dress shop. Wilfred wants to find a way to keep all of his – and his wife’s land – for himself, and keep his son around. So, of course, his mind eventually settles on murder – and he enlists his son’s help.

 

1922 is a classic, Telltale Heart like story – except instead of the beating of a heart driving the protagonist made, it’s Wilfred’s vision of rats that he sees, over and over again, as they naw on his wife’s face at the bottom of the well he buries her in – and then start to literally come at him from all over (at least literally to him, remember, the whole movie is his point-of-view, and the novella at least hints he may not be a reliable narrator). In the novella, King does a good job building everything up slowly to the murder – which happens in the before the first half of the story is up, and then unwinding everything from there. The movie was written and directed by Zak Hilditch, and he really does try to do the same thing. He gets a fine performance out of Thomas Jane – who maybe leans too heavily into the characters accent, and vocal intonations, but makes up for it with his depiction of his slow descent into madness. The other characters seem rather thinly sketched though – Molly Parker, fine actress as she may be, is pretty much playing the stereotypical nagging bitch wife (you can defend this in that it is Wilfred’s point of view, but that only goes so far) – and the changes that Henry go through seem to happen on a dime, making them mostly implausible. But the film really does excel at building up the atmosphere, and slowly getting under your skin. If you have an aversion to rats, the film will work even better – be even scarier – than it already is.

 

And yet, by the end of the film, I felt that it had overstayed its welcome. Everything in the movie happens at a deliberate pace – and perhaps it’s too deliberate, and there’s a little too much of it (at a certain point, piling on misery after misery becomes almost comical and over-the-top). Hilditch picked a good King to adapt (in general, it’s better to pick King’s short stories and novellas to adapt to the screen – because you can adapt them relatively intact, and they have stronger endings than his novels) – but he drags everything on too long. At an hour, this film could have been great. At 100 minutes, it’s fine – but mostly forgettable. Every film needs to find its own proper length – whether that’s 30 minutes, or 4 hours – this one misses it, and suffers because of it.