Little Fugitive (2005)
I got this DVD because I knew it was a remake of a 1953 film, even though the DVD box doesn’t mention it…I never liked the catalyst in that film, but I did enjoy the child’s POV. That film is a very innocent film, something that would be very hard to duplicate today because our social context is so different.
For instance, in the original, Lennie, 12 years old, plays a practical joke on his 7 year old brother, Joey. I forget whether he’s playing war or target practice, but the point is this: Joey believes he shot Lennie and runs away to Coney Island, where he can earn money, ride the rides and be without supervision. Lennie regrets his joke and goes to find his brother.
Watching the original, I had a number of questions that the new filmmaker apparently has as well. First off, if you were 12 and playing war today on anything but a video game, people would look at you funny — but in 1953, target practice was likely different. I’m sure there were children mishandling firearms, but there were probably a lot more allowed to own them, without the concerns we hold looking at children and guns today.
The boys’ mother works long hours and apparently never notices her children are gone. Why? Well, if she did, the film wouldn’t a child’s anymore.
The people Lennie meets in the old version are kind if indifferent, in that they assume he’s a regular kid there — with one exception. The pony ride man suspects Joey is lost, calms him, “hires” him and gets him to tell his phone number, which he uses to alert Lennie. This is, I think, one of the best parts in the film, because an adult is trying to help Joey as a friend.
In this new version, the childlike quality of the film is gone, but a lot of the questions I had are also answered. The film isn’t a remake so much as an attempt to turn the original on its head. You can’t have children playing with guns anymore with the complete innocence the original film had, and taking this as its lead, the film updates the boys’ lives successfully. Their life isn’t entirely innocent — Mom drinks and works long hours and leaves them alone for days; Dad’s supportive and kind, and in jail.
More is made of Lennie’s friends — instead of being his age, they’re older, tougher and meaner, and a point in the film is that Lennie has to steal the gun from his house, where it is locked away in a toolbox, in order to play the “joke” on Joey.
The settings are great in this film even before we get to Coney Island. Old military forts, abandoned lots, and Lennie’s friend is an older man who allows him to repair merry go round horses…a nice touch. (In fact, this character kind of takes the place of the pony ride man in the original). The history of Coney Island is explored with B&W shorts, with Lennie as the narrator — though oddly his narrations are all about bad things that happened there — which is acknowledged later.
The mythology is in place before the catalyst. Here, if Lennie’s stories about Coney Island are bad, his Dad’s are wonderful mythical stories about Lilliputia, the land of dwarfs (made more appropriate by the fact that Dad is a dwarf)…but Lennie never hears them. Only Joey visits Dad in jail and still believes the stories…Lennie tells him that Lilliputia was a place built for freaks like him…thus giving him a good reason to go there. If Lennie becomes annoyed at taking care of Joey for one day in the original, here he is tired of it of doing it constantly.
From the original’s time period, Lennie is probably only worried about getting home on time, with Joey, and telling him he’s sorry. Watching it, though, I was thinking he’s all by himself. This new film spends a lot more time looking at Lennie’s guilt…he’s actively searching not because he’s sorry, though he is, but because he’s very concerned for Joey’s safety.
This film broadens the boys’ home life and the people he meets along the way. In the original, the only significant adult he met was the pony ride man…this version has him meet several other homeless people, including children, most of whom are kind. In the largest twist, the pony ride man is not at all the kind person in the first film.
That was a shame but makes sense. This film is darker than the first. It recognizes that if Joey runs away, the world is not necessarily a good place. (Although, at times with the shorts, it emphasizes this too much).
A number of twists at the end, some very appropriate that I wondered about in the first film, and some not, wrap up the story. Lennie is, by turns, more responsible for his actions in this film, and less so, as he makes more than one mistake along the way.
This was an interesting reimagining of this film…It worked for me.The ending…well, I had to think of it the way I thought of The Wooden Camera…they go off in the end for a fairy tale adventure. Considering Lennie’s stories of Coney Island, that may not be the case, but you can interpret it two ways, and that’s mine. This film answered my questions and fills in family life, and it does rather well I thought.