I Am David (2003)

I Am David: Directed by Paul Feig. With Ben Tibber, Jim Caviezel, Hristo Shopov, Roberto Attias. A twelve-year-old boy escapes from a Bulgarian Communist concentration camp and sets out on a journey to reach Denmark.

“This is the sort of film that claims merit in allowing you to see a bad situation work out in tear-induced happiness. Its a sort of enigma why there is a market for these; I suppose we all carry unresolved injustices in our hearts and like to see the promise of them resolved. In getting this, we gloss over the mechanics. For instance this has gotten an award from some morality institute though youu0026#39;d be hard pressed to find anything or character in it that is actually an exemplar.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThereu0026#39;s determination, and thereu0026#39;s resolution, and somehow we superimpose admiration on the participants.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe really fascinating thing about this is that it really is two films: a long first part, followed by a quite different second part.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe first part follows a boyu0026#39;s escape. There actually is little to say other than this small bit, he escapes, and continues escaping.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe second part finds him with Joan Plowright and takes us to the resolution.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThese two parts are from completely different cinematic worlds. It is true that many movies are remembered only for their ending and viewers will forgive all sorts of clunks in the journey if they recall the end fondly. But this first part clunks like old ball bearings in soup. Thereu0026#39;s one unnecessarily improbable escape after another. Each one adds nothing, except to underscore the difficulty of what our hero is doing. But that difficulty gets undermined at every turn. He never seems hungry, in pain, in the least uncomfortable. He always u0026quot;gets away.u0026quot; None of the characters or places touch him in any way.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eIt seems as if the writer is putting us through this long process for only one reason, so that we can get a large number of flashbacks, each one revealing a little more of what becomes the real story. Iu0026#39;m prepared for indirect narrative; its an amazingly effective tool that I study. Here, we sort out the sense of the thing as he does.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eBut the container of this first part is so sickly sweet almost every viewer will give up, unless you live in a world of Sunday School cartoons.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe second part is as competent as the first is incompetent. Here, we harvest all the information we have been given in the flashbacks. Plus we have a real actor involved instead of folks who believe beatified shining is acting.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eHere;s where we get three twists in the narrative, one large. And thereu0026#39;s the hint that our boy is an illicit child, and the complications that brings. Its almost enough to make this watchable. But that first part puts us in a prison we cannot escape.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eTedu0026#39;s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.”