Apt Pupil . Austin Chronicle . 10-26-98

Apt Pupil

DIRECTED BY: Bryan Singer

REVIEWED: 10-26-98

Based on the Stephen King novella of the same name, Apt Pupil is one of those rarest of films, a King adaptation that doesnít fall flat. Itís not perfect, certainly, but as directed by Singer (The Usual Suspects) itís a punchy, hair-raising descent into the nature of evil and the corrupting influence of one manís power over another. Kingís pulpy, straightforward meditation on the same themes runs through the original work, and though Singer and screenwriter Brandon Boyce have toned down many of the authorís more disquieting passages (including an entirely new and entirely unnecessary ending), the tale, more or less, remains the same. Renfro plays Todd Bowden, a talented, seemingly normal Midwestern American teenager, with one exception: He harbors a bizarre obsession with Nazis and the Holocaust. When he discovers, quite by accident, that the wizened old man down the block is in reality Kurt Dussander (McKellan), former death camp commander, he uses it to blackmail Dussander into telling him ìall the things theyíre afraid to teach us in school.î Specifically, Todd is interested in the mechanics of genocide: How did the ovens work? How many Jews could be packed into a shower? How long did it take the Zyklon-B to work? And so on. As King put it, Todd is after ìall the gooshey stuff.î As their relationship progresses, the boy and Dussander form an unlikely partnership, one that awakens the latent evil in both of them. Eventually, Toddís grades begin to slip and the old man reasserts a control he hasnít had since the fall of Berlin. Singer stays remarkably true to the spirit of Kingís electrifying novella, but toes the line when it comes to the true horrors: Gone are the storyís homoerotic overtones, the boyís perversely sexual camp fantasies, and the entire Stephen King ending (King has gone on record as saying he believes the reworked finale is -- in a word -- ìweak,î and Iíd have to agree with him). In their absence, Singer piles on the stylistic flourishes, such as a scene in which Dussander makes sauerkraut of a wandering homeless man while strains of Wagnerís Tristan und Isolde blare, and a horrific, hallucinatory sequence wherein Todd imagines his school locker-room shower to be something else entirely. The storyís main themes, however, remain intact, and both McKellan and Renfro are spot-on in their portrayals. At times, Renfro seems a bit too All-American, until you flash back to the opening scene and its subtitle of ì1984.î Leaving the film in Kingís original time frame wipes out any sociological clutter such as gangsta rap, high school bloodbaths, and the like, that might otherwise get in the way of the filmís straightforward and wrenching emotional impact. Itís not perfect King, but it is jarringly close, which these days remains pretty much all one could hope for.

--Marc Savlov

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Other Films by Bryan Singer
The Usual Suspects

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The Kingdom
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