The Deep Blue Sea (UK, 2011)
Directed by Terence Davies
Starring Rachel Weisz, Simon Russell Beale, Tom Hiddleston, Ann Mitchell

One of the hardest things to rationalise as a film reviewer is when a director you love suddenly gets it wrong. Reviewing the latest Michael Bay disaster, or Brett Ratner-driven slice of hackery, is pretty easy: simply string together four or five superlatives, add some moral outrage and leave it to stew in its own juices. What's not so easy is trying to explain how Terence Davies has gone from something as inspired as Of Time and the City to such an abject failure in The Deep Blue Sea.Davies' output as a filmmaker has always been an acquired taste - which, in this context, is equally a loaded phrase and a straight-up compliment. Whether you like his back catalogue or not (and even he has mixed feelings), he has a distinctive voice and series of interests which set him apart from the mainstream. He has campaigned tirelessly for the promotion of British cinema, furiously refusing to accept the perceived dominance of Hollywood, both financially and artistically.You couldn't put the failure of Davies' latest film down to him being out of his depth. He has dabbled in period drama before, most prominently in The House of Mirth 11 years ago. But more than that, he has an intrinsic understanding of 1950s Britain, retaining both a childlike fondness of its cinema and a very real understanding of its social problems, which he experienced as a child. Davies has frequently described his father as "psychotic", and in Of Time and the City he painfully records both the realisation of his homosexuality and his disillusionment with religion.One thing that The Deep Blue Sea has clearly in its favour is the way it looks. Florian Hoffmeister's cinematography is lush, glossy and full of rich colours, which somewhat evokes the work of the late great Jack Cardiff. The period details are immaculate, whether it's the costumes the characters wear or the songs they sing in the pub. It's not, or at least it doesn't appear to be, a pretend version of 1950s Britain, either dreamt up by the tourist board or dropped in from Hollywood.Equally compelling is Davies' choice of music. His films have been described as having a "symphonic" quality, which goes back not just to 1950s melodrama but to the silent films which ultimately inspired them. In this case Davies turns to Samuel Barber, peppering many of Rachel Weisz's scenes with those long, elegiac strokes of the bow for which Barber was rightly famed. You won't find the now-clichéd Adagio for Strings sneaking in under the radar, but what there is works resoundingly well.But for all its lavish grandiosity, the big failing of The Deep Blue Sea is something so ironically simple: we just don't care about any of the people on screen. Whether because of the source material, the performances or Davies' approach to either, this is a damning indictment of Davies as a filmmaker. What has united all of his work in the past is an intrinsic connection to the characters - we can empathise with and understand them even in the most fantastical situations. This is the first film which Davies has made in which we have no connection to the characters at all, unless 'connection' can include emotions like contempt, anger and disdain.Part of the problem lies in the casting of Rachel Weisz. Davies said that she was the only person who could play Hester Collyer, and looking at her you can understand why. Weisz does have a kind of classical beauty which recalls Deborah Kerr, and she wears period costume very well. But while she may look the part, she fails completely on a dramatic level, leaving us annoyed by every word and action of hers on screen.When Weisz was performing in A Streetcar Named Desire, she gave an interview bemoaning the lack of dramatic filmmaking in Hollywood. She pointed to the paucity of adventurous drama in a time of obsession with genre, and in particular to a dearth of decent female leads. It's hard to argue against that, but someone urgently needs to tell her that 'drama' and 'moaning for two hours' are not the same thing. Hester does nothing but cry, moan, scream, smoke and stare mournfully into middle distance. Weisz is worse here than she is in The Lovely Bones, so much so that at times you wish her character would just get on with it and top herself.The male characters in the film fare no better. Simon Russell Beale is a very talented Shakespearean actor, and as with Weisz he looks the part as the elderly judge firmly in his mother's pocket. But he very quickly drifts into a stiff-upper-lip stereotype, as the film makes no effort to challenge our expectations of his occupation or social standing. Tom Hiddleston gets an equally duff hand, starting and ending as a caricature, namely the pilot who can't get over the war and return to a normal life.It would be tempting in light of this to put Davies in the same camp as Noah Baumbach. He is guilty of the same cardinal sin of The Squid and the Whale: giving us a film without any empathetic characters, let alone an interesting story. The difference is that Baumbach seems to have genuine contempt for his audience, branding them as philistines if they don't understand why it is engaging to watch over-privileged pseudo-intellectuals whinging about their massive houses and expensive educations. Davies shows no such contempt: he has just mis-steped in such a dramatic way that this would appear to be the case.One could argue that the failure of The Deep Blue Sea is a failure of the source material rather than its cinematic execution. Terence Rattigan's later work, written after the Second World War, is by and large dated and uninteresting. Early-1950s theatre was an empty and nostalgic celebration of pre-war life, with plays which seemed to lack any bearing on or interest in reality. The Deep Blue Sea is no exception, and its celebration of the British stiff-upper-lip feels horribly stale in 2011.While all of this is true, however, the responsibility of making a film work ultimately lies with its director. There have been many filmmakers which have taken average scripts and acquitted themselves perfectly well: either of John Hillcoat's films are reasonable examples. But Davies makes the fatal error of assuming that we should care or be interested, rather than giving us any reason to of its own accord. He plays everything so straight that there is no way in for a modern audience, for whom the wartime attitudes seem at best admirably outdated and at worst totally absurd.The big dramatic problem with The Deep Blue Sea lies in Hester's frustration or repression - something Weisz would know all about from A Streetcar Named Desire. If you're going to show repression, there has to be a pay-off or some form of character development to make all this pressure worthwhile, whether it's a happy ending or a lonely suicide. But this moment never arrives; the central relationship is tedious, unbelievable, and goes absolutely nowhere.The Deep Blue Sea reminds us of two great periods of British filmmaking. Firstly, it recalls the great work of Powell and Pressburger in the 1940s and early-1950s, as they grabbed the conventions of melodrama by the scruff of the neck and produced works of profundity, nuance and visual splendour. And secondly, it reminds us just how important the British New Wave was in eroding these conventions, removing the veils of ignorance, escapism and denial which blighted so much of 1950s cinema.The Deep Blue Sea is caught between the devil and its title, lacking the brilliance of the former and the relevance of the latter. You sit there amongst the tedious story and annoying characters, yearning for Malcolm McDowell to burst in brandishing a machine gun and inform the characters that the world they knew and fought for is long gone. Only time will tell how damaging this will prove to Davies' craft as a filmmaker. It is at very best an admirable failure, being a beautifully shot folly for an audience that no longer exists.

Rating:
Verdict: An absolute and obsolete calamity

Dances with Wolves (USA, 1990)
Directed by Kevin Costner
Starring Kevin Costner, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, Rodney A. Grant

It may be a clichéd complaint, but more often than not the Academy has got the Best Picture Oscar dead wrong. Sometimes, as with Crash, their mistake is obvious and the outcry is instant; on other occasions, as with Citizen Kane, both the Academy and the public have taken time to see the error of their ways. And then we have Dances with Wolves, which beat Goodfellas to the big gong to deny Martin Scorsese his Oscar for a third time. While not as crass a mistake as the others, time has not been kind to Kevin Costner's debut, which now seems long on principle but short on actual story.The obvious way to prey on Dances with Wolves would be to attack Costner's subsequent career. His later efforts behind the camera have left a lot to be desired, with Waterworld running hugely over budget and The Postman being the dictionary definition of tedious. His acting style and drawling delivery suggest a man who takes himself far too seriously, rivalling only Nicolas Cage for stony-faced absurdity. But a quick glance at his back catalogue reveals a slightly more complicated picture. Lest we forget, Costner was once an admired and popular actor, who acquitted himself perfectly well in No Way Out, The Untouchables and Field of Dreams. And for all the gaping flaws in his directorial efforts, you could never accuse him of going in with anything but the very best intentions.The most obvious quality of Dances with Wolves is that it is very even-handed towards its subject matter. It approaches the relationship between Native Americans and American soldiers with the same restraint and intelligence that Clint Eastwood applied to the subject of revenge in Unforgiven. There has clearly been a lot of effort expended by Costner and the writer Michael Blake to get away from the clichéd depiction of Native Americans as a backward, violent people, who deserved everything they got from the brave, civilised white men driving them off the land in the name of God and Progress.You also have to applaud Costner's ambition as a director. There are few actors, let alone big stars, who would have taken on such a big project first time out. Costner was shooting in mostly external locations for four months, including several elaborate sequences with hundreds of real horses and buffalo. His commitment was such that he nearly broke his back from doing his own stunts, and stumped up over $3m of his own money to cover the costs incurred by bad weather. Costner was prepared to take risks with Dances with Wolves, and that deserves praise regardless of whether the film works or not.A further point of admiration comes in Costner's decision to have much of the dialogue spoken in the Lakota language. The fact that the film grossed more than $400m worldwide, and $184m domestically, is a massive raspberry to the notion that Western audiences won't pay to watch films that aren't in the English language. But it also proves that the respect for the different cultures within the film is genuine, not just a device for boosting Costner's artistic standing. This remains the case even after Russell Means pointed out the flawed translations, which left all the men in the film speaking in the female Sioux dialect.In terms of the admiration it generates, Dances with Wolves is in the same league as Battle of Britain in terms of pure good will. But like Battle of Britain, this admiration does not guarantee good drama, and little by little Costner's film begins to look earnest to the point of being dul. It ends up stuck halfway between Unforgiven and Heaven's Gate, being neither as gripping nor elegiac as the former, nor as wretchedly pretentious as the latter. It never becomes as well-meaningly dull as Battle of Britain, but its flaws in terms of pacing and emotion cannot help but prey on our minds.The first 45 minutes of Dances with Wolves are very slow and very portentous. Costner is clearly pulling out all the stops to make us admire and believe in the character of John Dunbar, but he ends up both trying too hard and not enough. The opening battle sequence features Costner attempting suicide by riding straight at the Confederate front line with his arms held out in a messianic pose - a decision which results in sniggers or sneers rather than feelings of empathy. In the various scenes that follow, where Dunbar is sent out to the frontier, too much effort is expended trying to express his bravery and not enough made on showing him as a rounded human being.When I reviewed (500) Days of Summer, I argued that the presence of a narrator in any kind of film creates an element of certainty which can sometimes work against dramatic tension. In the case of Dances with Wolves, one could argue it is necessary since the diary is integral to the later stages of the plot. But while it is partially justified on a narrative level, Costner's delivery of it is frankly third-rate. His readings feel rushed and increasingly desperate, as he tries to convey the gravity of the situation without much success.The narration aside, there is precious little about Dances with Wolves which is rushed. At just over 3 hours long (4 hours in its Director's Cut), comparisons with Heaven's Gate are unavoidable; the project was even nicknamed 'Kevin's Gate' after the production delays were leaked to the press. Costner's film is nowhere near as baggy as Heaven's Gate, let alone as self-serving, but it is every bit as drawn out, especially in its final act. Had Kevin gone through with a pair of scissors and lost even 30 seconds from every scene, it would have made a world of difference.The biggest problem with Dances with Wolves is that it constantly tells us how important the events are without doing enough to show us why this is the case. There are many beautiful or poignant images throughout, from the hundreds of dead buffalo lying on the plains to the couple's departure from the winter camp. But these images don't carry the weight that they should because we haven't invested enough in the characters to make them any more than pretty compositions.The film is so respectful towards the Sioux that it is almost hesitant to scratch the surface and ask the difficult questions about how their society works, such as the relationship between fathers and sons, and the position of women. This is understandable up to a point, considering the negative depiction of Native Americans in Hollywood throughout the 20th century - a fact which, if you believe Marlon Brando, led him to turn down his second Oscar. But you would think that if Costner were brave enough to embark on something of such scale and ambition, the last thing he would be worried about was mildly offending people.Fortunately, the film does pick up after the first 45 minutes and has moments where the action and characters do take flight. Many of these scenes find Costner willing to let his hair down, whether it's dancing with Two Socks around the camp fire or giving audiences a clear view of his naked bottom. It is hard not to get swept up in the chases scene across the plains, diligently matched by John Barry's stirring score. And some of the lighter moments within the camp help us to relax as well; when Dunbar interrupts Kicking Bird's nearby lovemaking, Graham Greene's facial expression says it all.The romantic aspect of Dances with Wolves is well-played for an epic, if only because the central relationship develops at a reasonable rate. We don't get that agonising sensation as in Out of Africa, where we know the characters are meant to kiss and are begging them to get on with it. The scenes of Stands with a Fist interpreting between Dunbar and Kicking Bird are well-played, serving their purpose while conveying the sexual tension between the characters. Their relationship conveys the conflicted identity of the central characters and the possibility of future harmony between the nations.Dances with Wolves is ultimately a very middling film. It's too long to adequately serve its story, but not so long that we lose all patience with it. Its respect for its characters undercuts the drama, but not to the extent that we sit there drifting into a coma. And its direction is uninvolving, but not in an artsy, egotistical way. Calling it an average or ordinary film is to belie Costner's ambition, but any higher praise is impossible in light of its flaws. It remains significant but not stirring, admirable but not engaging, important but not profound.

Rating:
Verdict: Admirable but not always engaging

Wild at Heart (USA, 1990)
Directed by David Lynch
Starring Nicolas Cage, Laura Dern, Diane Ladd, Willem Dafoe

You know you've arrived as a filmmaker when a bespoke adjective is created to describe your work - Gilliam-esque, Kubrickian, Lynchian and so on. But with this honour comes the danger of said filmmaker producing films which consist of familiar images or elements, without the narrative or thematic cohesion which earned them the label in the first place.Wild of Heart is only partially guilty of this, not being one of David Lynch's strongest or most cohesive efforts. Although its thematic unity is never in doubt, and its central narrative is easy enough to follow, it ultimately amounts to a series of strange and memorable moments which punctuate his loose reworking of a road movie. While episodic and baggy, it contains moments of Lynch at his absolute best, and even at its worst is nothing short of unforgettable.Just as Lynch saw Eraserhead as his version of The Philadelphia Story, so Wild at Heart could be described as his take on The Wizard of Oz. Lynch has acknowledged its influence throughout his career, and his most recent works, Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, have incorporated visual or narrative references to it throughout. But whereas these films are Lynch works with little nods to Oz thrown in, this is a full-on marriage of the two, as Lynch takes all the touchstones of L. Frank Baum's story, adds plenty of violence, cranks up the creepiness (if that were possible), and makes the central relationship more emotionally raw and raunchy.The parallels between the two works are candid from the outset. Lula is Dorothy, thrust into a strange world that is "wild at heart and weird on top", and sustained only by Sailor's companionship and the promise of returning to something she can recognise. Sailor in this interpretation is an amalgam of Dorothy's companions: he may not be much of a coward, but he certainly lacks brains, and his capacity for love doesn't extend much beyond devotion. Alternatively, these two represent different aspects of Dorothy, contrasting Sailor's self-confidence with Lula's sensitivity.The Oz references extend far beyond the permutations of the central characters. Diane Ladd makes a convincing Wicked Witch of the West, following Lula's/ Dorothy's every move, cursing the fact that the couple are still together and getting further towards their goal in spite of all her schemes. The long road to California doubles for the yellow brick road, and the car crash featuring Twin Peaks star Sherilyn Fenn could be a nod to the poppy fields, which disorientate and threaten to destroy the heroes. Fenn later turns up as a literal manifestation of the Good Witch Glinda, reflecting that the couple's perseverance and desire to help her were both the right choices to make.Lynch described the central theme of Wild at Heart as "finding love in Hell". He creates a dark and violent world all around the characters - a world populated by car crashes, robberies, betrayal, infidelity, sex, violence and various undignified ways of dying. With all the supporting characters having at least one foot rooted in the grotesque, Sailor and Lula become our natural focus, as people with at least part of their sanity intact who desire more than anything else to escape, by whatever means.This atmosphere of aggression and theme of feeling trapped is reinforced by Lynch's choice of music. Working with Angelo Badalamenti, who has scored all his work since Blue Velvet, Lynch blends the laid-back 1950s sound of Chris Isaac's brilliant 'Wicked Game' to some very aggressive speed metal, the latter of which foreshadows his work with Marilyn Manson on Lost Highway. It's an oddly effective blend, depicting the violence and possible redemption which confront the characters.Music plays a key role in demonstrating the mental conflict of the central characters. In one great scene, Lula tunes through all the radio stations in the car, hearing nothing but bad news. She slams on the brakes, gets out of the car, and starts screaming that she'll go mad unless she hears music. Sailor finds some hard rock, starts screaming too, and they share an impromptu mosh in the middle of the desert. There are big nods to the Elvis back catalogue, with Sailor serenading Lula with 'Love Me' in the club, and finally cementing his love with 'Love Me Tender' during the closing credits.Although these scenes in and of themselves are well-assembled and great fun, they do hint at the big central problem with Wild at Heart. There are so many of these strange little bits floating around the central story that they never quite integrate into a seamless, disorientating whole. Lynch's symbolic imagery and manipulation of colour don't gel quite so naturally with the story and characters as such techniques did in Blue Velvet or Mulholland Drive.The Blue Velvet comparison is the more illuminating, particularly with regard to the amount of time the ideas of the film had to gestate. Lynch had the story and themes for Blue Velvet all worked out in his head before Dune, so that even when he was forced to shoot quickly due to lack of money, he knew how to shoot the robins speech, or the zoom down to the cockroaches, in a way which was seamlessly integral to the story and its themes.Wild at Heart, on the other hand, was rushed into production following the collapse of Dino DeLaurentiis' production company, which delayed progress on both Twin Peaks and Lynch's pet project, Ronnie Rocket. He was given Barry Gifford's novel by friend Monty Montgomery with a view to producing it, and only had two months between buying the rights and beginning to shoot. It is no surprise therefore that the script of Wild at Heart doesn't entirely click; it is, in Lynch's words, "a compilation of ideas."This disjoined feel has the side effect of taking us out of the story during many of the weirder moments. During Jack Nance's cameo, doubling for Toto in yet another Oz reference, you find yourself staring as much in puzzlement as in mesmerism. Some of Badalamenti's musical cues feel oddly overcooked, such as the huge dramatic chord when Sailor pulls up at Perdita's house. The final scene, where Sailor and Lula reaffirm their love, lacks the beauty and irony of Blue Velvet's ending, which manages to be both uplifting and watchful.Despite some self-imposed cuts on Lynch's part, there are many scenes in Wild at Heart which remain problematic. The violence is par for the course for an 18 certificate, even the sight of Willem Dafoe's character losing his head with a double-barrelled shotgun. But the sexual advances of Dafoe's character are deeply disturbing for all the wrong reasons, and the recurring image of Lula's rape doesn't add to the central theme beyond turning our stomachs (as rape should).Ultimately, however, the performances in Wild at Heart are enough to see things through. Nicolas Cage is on startling form, showing that he thrives when given a director who understands melodrama and exaggerated characters. He may be massively over-the-top, but it makes sense, and his Elvis impersonation is great. Laura Dern's unusual beauty fits the Southern belle look of her character, and we believe in her emotional turmoil throughout. And amongst the hysterical supporting case, including Dern's real-life mother Diane Ladd, the stand-out is Harry Dean Stanton, who stands calm in the eye of the storm, looking as bemused as the rest of us.Wild at Heart is not Lynch's finest work by any stretch of the imagination. It has structural deficiencies which were not sorted out in the editing room, and the lurches in tone may prove too much for the casual viewer. But in the moments when it does work - and there are plenty - it is an often joyous reminder of Lynch's power as a filmmaker, telling stories in ways which are frighteningly unique. While no masterpiece, nor an ideal starting point, it is often majestic and always memorable.

Rating:
Verdict: Wonderful moments with weirdness to spare

Lord of the Flies (UK, 1963)
Directed by Peter Brook
Starring James Aubrey, Tom Chapin, Hugh Edwards, Roger Elwin

The ideas and imagery of Lord of the Flies have become so deeply engrained in our culture that it would be very easy to accuse any film version of skimming the surface. The concept of a dark beast lurking in the heart of well-meaning Man may be far more ancient than William Golding's novel. But there is a danger that any adaptation could embody the theme without doing justice to the story, relying on layman knowledge or consensus to carry the action.While this criticism can be fairly levelled against the 1990s version, there is no such cause for concern with the vision of Peter Brook. In adapting Golding's chilling and pessimistic novel, he has done justice to the source material while putting his own blend of artistic naturalism onto the story. The result is a subtle and sinister film whose sense of dread creeps up on you and eventually overpowers without warning. While aspects of it haven't aged that well, it still stands as the definitive adaptation.Brook's skill as a director, both on film and in the theatre, has always been allowing the material to speak for itself. The brand that is Peter Brook bestows upon a production certain expectations of quality, but this derives from a captivating whole rather than individual gimmicks. Brook clearly understands the pattern and composition of Golding's prose, and very rarely feels the need to impose his own attitude onto the visual rendering of it. This is a sign of confidence in both the source material and in one's capabilities as a director.The one notable exception to this comes in the opening credits. As the various names flash past, we see images of English civilisation at its supposed peak - all choir boys and straw boaters - intercut with ICBMs and B52s. In one particularly haunting image, we see the image of a bomber drawn on a boy's textbook in a photo full of smiling faces in uniform. This is a novel way of introducing the theme, and probably stems as much from the novel as from the experience of filming it. While much of Golding's work is about the threat of nuclear war, Brook shot large portions of the film in the Bay of Pigs, not long after the Cuban Missile Crisis.The central idea of Lord of the Flies is that Man is inherently savage: that within every seemingly civilised, rational and morally upright individual, there is a dark-hearted beast which will reveal itself even in the most innocent of circumstances. The film is the visual equivalent of a thought experiment, a philosophical game in which theories are tested hypothetically and judged according to the behavioural responses they produce. Golding concludes, as does Brook, that Man's murky, Hobbesian desire for self-preservation overrides everything else, to the point where tribalism is commonplace, murder is justified, and objective truth (should such a thing exist) holds no sway whatsoever.There has been some discussion over the years about the relationship between Golding's thesis and the Christian position on Mankind, i.e. the role of Sin, the long-term effects of the Fall, and the possible role of grace and redemption. Brook brings these discussions to the forefront and seems to suggest that the teachings of Christ provide no resistance to or adequate means of containing the beast, at least without proper application. The choirboys, who enter singing 'Kyrie Eleison' ('Lord, have mercy') along the beach, turn out to be the most ruthless, merciless and hierarchical group on the island.Lord of the Flies is not specifically anti-Christian because of this development. The characters are assessed and leaders emerge on the basis of physical strength and the ability to command respect. This is a quarrel between reason and instinct, between head and heart (or stomach), rather than an outright rejection of Christianity in favour of atheism or any other seemingly opposite doctrine. If anything Christian imagery abounds in Lord of the Flies, with the island serving as the world outside the Garden of Eden, the plane crash doubling quite literally for the Fall, and the arrival of the sea captain at the end as either the coming of Jesus or the arrival of the New Heaven and Earth.In its emphasis on instinct and tribalism, Lord of the Flies could come across as a purely nihilistic work - a film which explores the idea of life being totally pointless, and the only natural part of human behaviour being the desire for power which manifests itself in utterly amoral violence. But one of the successes of Brook's adaptation is to demonstrate how even the most morally skewed civilisation has some form of supernatural basis, either in its recognition of a God-like force, or its need to create such a force to justify itself.The warrior tribe formed by the choristers begin to talk about a beast which lives on the island, which must be contained by sacrifices or killed if the group is to survive. The sacrifices which they offer to the beast, in the form of a boar's head on a pike, immediately take on a supernatural quality, consolidated by the scenes of them hollering on the beach and dancing around the fire like Native Americans. The beast is like the distant, jealous God from the Old Testament: no-one has the courage to meet or confront the force which seemingly controls them.Both Golding and Brook are very even-handed in their treatment of both the political and supernatural aspects of the events on the island. The subtle orchestration of the meeting scenes, where the conche is passed around and people voice their opinions on what should be done, ably demonstrate both the strengths and weaknesses of both democratic government and militaristic barbarism. One of the most striking images in the film is that of the boar's head; as one of the boys stares at it, the camera zooms in onto the flies slowly eating it away. It's as disturbing and discomforting an image as the cockroaches at the start of Blue Velvet, both in its weight and in its ability to make one feel queasy.All of these visual and narrative touches are in keeping with the source material while putting a particular artistic and cinematic stamp on the events that unfold. This balance between loyalty and artistic licence allows Brook's adaptation to be entrist without being reductionist. In other words, you can read as much into the film as you like, without either having the themes shoved down your throat or feeling like you are watching something that has been severely abridged or bowdlerised. Considering how familiar the material is in English literature, this is quite an achievement.The performances in Lord of the Flies are all of a pretty decent calibre. Brook did not work from a specific script: in a foreshadowing of Mike Leigh's rigorous method of improvisation, he would give the young boys a rough idea of what would happen in a scene, and then allow them to ad lib with minimal prompting. It takes a while to adjust to their delivery, but they are generally convincing, particularly a young James Aubrey as Ralph.The problems with Lord of the Flies surround aspects of either the source or the adaptation which have dated. The ending of Lord of the Flies remains a classic deus ex machina (in more ways than one); with all that has gone before, it would have been scarier and more radical for the film to have ended with Ralph being killed, cementing the beast's triumph and subverting the Christian imagery. Aspects of the dialogue, such as the social attitudes of the boys, have not aged very well, and the sound design is occasionally a little stilted. Because of time constraints Brook was forced to record the sound for each scene after they had shot it, resulting in a couple of synching issues or odd deliveries.Lord of the Flies is a fiery and faithful adaptation which has more or less retained its potency after nearly 50 years. Notwithstanding the dated aspects and the on-going problem of the ending, it captures the pessimistic, despondent tone of Golding's work beautifully, and has many scenes capable of generating either outright scares or hideous chills. It remains the definitive adaptation of the book and one of the highlights of Brook's career in film.

Rating:
Verdict: A faithfully haunting adaptation