CARRIE (2013 - HORROR) ***1/2 out of *****
(Never piss off someone who can make bad things happen just by willing it - just saying...)
CAST: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Portia Doubleday, Alex Russell, Ansel Elgort, Judy Greer, Zoe Belkin, Karissa Strain, Barry Shabaka Henley.
DIRECTOR: Kimberly Pierce
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some compelling reasons to never harass someone with bad-ass telekinetic powers - straight ahead...
IT'S LIKE THIS: Poor high school senior Carrie White (Chloe Grace Moretz). She's as cute and pretty as, um, Chloe Grace Moretz but that's where pros end. On the cons side: (1) Carrie is routinely messed with and teased by her schoolmates, led by the pathologically evil Chris Hargenson (Portia Doubleday), the kind of manipulative bully who will always be harassing people, whether she is 16 or 60, unless an official complaint and lawsuit are filed against her; (2) Carrie has a religious zealot wacko for a mother (Julianne Moore) who doesn't tell her the womanly things she should know like, oh, one day she will start getting her period and shouldn't freak out about it because it's a normal part of sexual development; and the most devastating of all: (3) the senior prom is rapidly approaching but Carrie still doesn't have a date. All in all, not exactly a cakewalk for our dear Carrie.
Our story gets kicked off when Carrie discovers all about the aforementioned menstruation thing while showering after gym class. She basically sees all the blood coursing down her legs - and promptly freaks the fuck out. Carrie screams for help and rushes up to her classmates, who are understandably wondering why a little, um, crimson discharge is making her spaz out. That harassing bully Chris seizes the opportunity to be, well, even more of a harassing bully: she uses her Smartphone to film Carrie writhing around on the shower floor, bloodier than a stuck pig - while urging the other girls to hurl tampons at Carrie and yell "Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up! Plug it up!" A shining example of sisterhood, this is not, folks.
As you can imagine, this incident doesn't go over well with the school's administrators. The tender but tough Ms. Desjardins (Judy Greer) is instructed by Principal Morton (Barry Shabaka Henley) to fully investigate the matter. To make matters even worse, our psycho bitch Chris posts the video of Carrie bleeding all over You Tube. Ms. Desjardins urges Carrie to file a well-deserved complaint but Carrie takes the high road and decides not to. Ms. Desjardins, however, is not as forgiving: she punishes Chris and the other girls by making them do grueling exercise grills after class - either that, or they are banned from the prom. As you can imagine, the girls basically make like bimbo versions of Jackie Joyner-Kersey and get busy.
All except that psycho Chris - who thinks she can defy Ms. Desjardins and get away with it. Basically, she refuses to do any of the drills and urges her classmates to join her in her rebellion. When they all basically tell her to go fuck herself because there is no way in hell they are missing prom, too, Chris runs off throwing a hissy-fit to daddy. Mr. Hargenson (Hart Bochner) shows up to try to browbeat Ms. Desjardins and Principal Morton to let Chris go to prom. However, his attitude changes when learns about the video of Carrie that Chris took and posted on You Tube. When he demands to see her Smartphone to check if the video is on there, Chris pulls another hissy-fit and runs out of the room. Nothing sadder than a manipulative, harassing bully who finally gets caught in the act.
One girl who does feel genuinely bad about her participation in the shower incident is the lovely Sue Snell (Gabriella Wilde), who is inexplicably best friends with Chris. How can such a sweet, sympathetic, and kind-hearted girl like Sue be best friends with a fake, ugly-hearted, rotten-on-the-inside, awful person like Chris? Well, after the shower incident, Sue begins to see Chris' true, nasty colors and backs the hell away from her, big-time, and decides to keep things just all-business between them. No more personal stuff, thank you.
To make amends to Carrie, Sue decides to make a sacrifice: she graciously and generously tells her boyfriend Tommy Ross (Ansel Elgort) to take Carrie to the prom instead - and Sue will stay home and let the poor tormented girl enjoy a magical night of her own at the dance. At first, Mrs. Desjardins is skeptical of Sue's plan, but she gradually realizes that Sue is 100% sincere and is trying to make things right. And, as you can imagine, Carrie is overjoyed by the prospect of going to the prom with the guy she's been crushing on forever. It's quite literally a dream come true. If only Mama White would go along with it...
As we mentioned before, Margaret (Carrie's mom) is a religious zealot who abhors anything that isn't sanctioned by the Old Testament - and that includes going to prom with a hottie like Tommy Ross. Margaret does her best to get Carrie to decline, but Carrie has made up her mind that she will live it up finally - and stop living in the shadows. And when Margaret puts up a fight, Carrie lifts up all the furniture in the house using only her mind and puts Margaret in an invisible stranglehold from twenty feet away.
Oh, I didn't mention that Carrie has telekinetic powers? Well, she does, folks. In case you are wondering what that is, it's the ability to move objects just by concentrating and thinking about it. In other words, this is not the girl you want to cross the line with...
Will Carrie have a magical night at the prom? Or will Chris continue to harass her even though she's been banned from attending the event? And will Chris try to get back at Sue for seeing through Chris’ phony façade and rightfully turning away from her? Will Margaret find a way to keep Carrie home? Is she right when she warns Carrie that "they'll all laugh at you!"? Will Ms. Desjardins be able to protect Carrie? And who will protect Carrie's tormentors when she finally decides enough is fucking enough?
Five words: this will not end well...
BUT, SERIOUSLY: When we were leaving the theatre after watching CARRIE, a group of teenagers in front of us were discussing the film. One of them turned to the others and derisively said, "I guess the moral of the story is we should be nice to weirdos." The others laughed in response, and then they moved on to other topics not related to the film. However, whether or not they realized it, they hit the thematic nail right on the head - and one can only hope they will take it seriously. Or as Sue Snell, one of the movie's few survivors, says at the very end to an investigative panel convened to look into the prom incident where Carrie's wrath finally exploded: "Carrie White was just like us. She had hopes. She had dreams. You can only push someone so far before they break..."
CARRIE is a remake of the 1976 film that was based on Stephen King's best-seller of the same name. When the first movie came out in the mid-70s, America's high schools were considered relatively safe. The notion that they would eventually become increasingly common settings for mass murders and shootings was totally alien back then. Unfortunately, however, with the April 20, 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, our world changed. Bullying was initially cited as a main factor in the Columbine massacre, though there are those who now question whether other factors were involved. And although school shootings occurred before Columbine, it was never at that large of a scale and this tragic event that put a terrible face on the new, growing problem.
A study by the United States Secret Service about a year after the Columbine massacre reportedly showed that, in about two-thirds of 37 pre-meditated school shootings, bullying was a major factor. The website stopbullying.gov also states that 12 out of 15 school shootings in the 1990s were motivated by bullying. And now with the advent of social media, a new form of harassment has taken shape: cyberbullying and cyberstalking. Just recently, a Florida 12-year old killed herself after relentless bullying and being stalked online and in person by her peers. In CARRIE 2013, Carrie White becomes a victim of cyberbullying when Chris Hargenson posts the shower incident video on YouTube - mirroring real-life events.
Bottom line: with all the stories of bullying and harassment in schools reported over the last ten years, CARRIE 2013 takes on an added layer of significance. Meanwhile, watching CARRIE 1976 either for the first time or once again also has an eerie effect, because of how Stephen King intuited the future with his tale of a teased, harassed, and oppressed school outsider finally reaching her limits - with deadly consequences. In the end, CARRIE 1976 is a better film, but CARRIE 2013 is still a worthy remake.
The main reason the original film is better than the remake is because of Carrie herself, and the difference in the actresses playing her. In the 1976 version, Sissy Spacek brings a truly heartbreaking quality to the role. In Spacek's hands, there is a painful shyness to Carrie White that is almost palpable. You truly feel for her and want to protect her - which makes the harassment and abuse she gets from her peers even more wrenching. In the remake, Chloe Grace Moretz is a little too "pulled together." While we still feel sympathy for Moretz's Carrie, and want to see her left in peace, we are not as concerned for her as we are for Spacek's Carrie.
This has a lot to do with Moretz and how she carries herself. She has successfully navigated the tricky path from of child star to teen star that has tripped up many young performers before her, primarily due to her preternatural maturity and sangfroid. From her first major cinematic appearances as the precocious young terminal patient in Jessica Alba's otherwise tepid 2008 thriller THE EYE, and as the sister of Joseph Gordon-Levitt's lovelorn character in 2009's 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, Moretz has always displayed a self-assured and confident air that clings to her like a bold fragrance. Even in her characters' most vulnerable moments, this cool composure gives her an "I-will-be-just-fine-thank-you" air. As a result, she makes Carrie into less of a victim than Spacek did back in 1976 – which, in turn, makes this film just a little less affecting than the original.
What makes us still root for Carrie here, though, is the fact that her tormentors and harassers are just as unlikable and awful in this version as their 1976 counterparts - perhaps even more. Portia Doubleday takes the role of Chris Hargenson that Nancy Allen originally ran with and makes her even more loathsome, if that's possible. The film's most satisfying moment is when Chris and her boyfriend/accomplice Billy Nolan (Alex Russell, stepping into John Travolta's shoes) finally get what's coming to them at Carrie's hands. Poetic justice, if there was ever any. The rest of Chris’ bullying posse led by Karissa Strain and Zoe Belkin are similarly hissable.
Also, most of the “positive” characters are more vivid than their 1976 predecessors. The new version of Tommy Ross - Sue's boyfriend who helps her make it up to Carrie - is even more engaging than the one before. Ansel Elgort gives the role the same quirky sweetness that William Katt did in 1976 - but also infuses it with genuinely sexy masculinity. Which makes Tommy's eventual fate even sadder. In fact, when discussing this movie afterwards, we agreed that it wasn't (SPOILERS) the pig's blood that Chris and Billy dumped all over Carrie on the prom stage that really set her off - it was actually Tommy's accidental death because of the falling metal bucket. Basically, when Carrie saw this kind-hearted guy die because of Chris and Billy's malice, all bets were off - and there was no turning back.
My favorite characters though, are Sue Snell and Ms. Desjardins, the two ladies who each throw Carrie a lifeline that ultimately is not enough to save her. Gabriella Wilde's version of Sue is a lot more vulnerable and therefore less ambiguous and more likable than Amy Irving's interpretation in the original. Same goes for Judy Greer as Ms. Desjardins, who tries to look out for Carrie as best she can within the parameters of her job. Greer makes her version of the role less severe than Betty Buckley's back in 1976, without compromising her toughness. It's a tricky act, but Greer (who made her mark in comedies) manages it, proving that she can do serious as well as funny when she chooses.
Finally, there is Julianne Moore as Margaret White, a role that Piper Laurie made scary and unsettling in 1976. Here, Moore does a very welcome thing - she underscores Margaret's humanity. Yes, this makes the character a lot less creepy, but it also makes us see her as more than a one-dimensional religious nut - and more of a woman who's lived a hard life and is now inadvertently taking it out on her daughter. Julianne Moore has wonderfully expressive eyes that always seem to have a hint of sadness in them, even when she's smiling - and that vulnerability turns Margaret White into a more sympathetic version than the one Laurie gave us in the original. Brava, Julianne...
In the end, CARRIE 2013 is a solid remake of the 1976 classic. Whether or not it will be taken as more than just an entertaining horror film about a girl with special powers who is pushed too far, remains to be seen. However, in this day and age when school shootings seem to be happening with alarming frequency, with many innocent lives getting caught in the crossfire, let's hope in some small way this story will impart lessons about genuine tolerance and kindness - as those teenagers at the movie theatre jokingly mentioned. But let's hope they realize that harassment, whether in school or out of it, is no joking matter.
