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Film Review - Distrubia
Anna Wiegenstein - The Daily Iowan
Issue date: 4/16/07 Section: Arts
- Page 1 of 1
*** out of *****
Movies such as this make my life harder. Most of the time, I can keep my film geekery to a semi-acceptable level among those who love me enough to overlook it. Most of the time, I can watch schlocky thrillers come and go at the multiplex without comment. This one's different.
Sitting in a theater some weeks back, I watched the first few seconds of the Disturbia trailer placidly enough. "Oh, it's that kid from 'Even Stevens,' right?" Then things starting looking eerily familiar, and I felt myself shaking my head in horror.
Oh, Rear Window. What have they done to you?
Even now, as the watchful, binoculared eyes of Jimmy Stewart stare at me from my poster across the room, I can't help but feel like the oldest and crankiest 20-year-old I know. That said: Even though I may have walked into the Sycamore Cinema 12 looking sour, Disturbia managed to win me over. Mostly.
The story is that of Kale (Shia LaBeouf), a high-schooler whose otherwise pleasant existence is violently disrupted by an untimely death (in an opening segment that's as startling as it is gorgeously shot). His misanthropy eventually results in his placement under house arrest, to the dismay of his mother (Carrie-Anne Moss, how soon the mom roles have found you).
After a gorging of PlayStation and junk food, Kale begins to go stir-crazy within his own walls. Thank god a hottie has just moved in next door - Ashley (Sarah Roemer), who has a penchant for taking long swims right outside Kale's bedroom window. Relieving his boredom by ogling various neighbors, Kale begins to focus his interest on one Mr. Turner (David Morse), who may or may not be a serial murderer.
In another universe, a movie such as Disturbia might have been seen as groundbreaking - it comments on the voyeuristic pleasure of moviegoing, a topic film scholars are only too happy to debate endlessly. The one requirement of said universe: Rear Window, the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece, needs to have never been made.
Even aside from the Hitchcock comparisons (the film's credits don't even mention the screenplay as being adapted, which raised my eyebrows a bit), Disturbia is only fairly good. Its cinematography and musical score are leaps and bounds above most teen-centric thrillers, but the plot jarringly leaps back and forth between the slapstick antics of the perils of house arrest and a potential murder, resulting in a befuddling atmosphere. It earns an entire star, though, for the skillfully executed action sequence at the climax of the film, which walks the line between gory and suspenseful in a way Hitchcock might have smiled at.
LaBeouf is charming, playing Kale as a student of the Adam Brody School of Quirk. Ronnie, his best friend, played by Aaron Yoo, is actually much more intriguing and energetic, if coming off a tad manic at times. Roemer, who's put in the Grace Kelly role, is a disappointing blank of a character, with the romantic plot providing the film with as much lame dialogue as it does sex appeal.
Disturbia doesn't provide much in the way of surprises - the twists I've kept covered up aren't incredibly shocking by any means. Instead, the film pulls its biggest revelation by simply being as good as it is.
E-mail DI reporter Anna Wiegenstein at:
anna-wiegenstein@uiowa.edu
Movies such as this make my life harder. Most of the time, I can keep my film geekery to a semi-acceptable level among those who love me enough to overlook it. Most of the time, I can watch schlocky thrillers come and go at the multiplex without comment. This one's different.
Sitting in a theater some weeks back, I watched the first few seconds of the Disturbia trailer placidly enough. "Oh, it's that kid from 'Even Stevens,' right?" Then things starting looking eerily familiar, and I felt myself shaking my head in horror.
Oh, Rear Window. What have they done to you?
Even now, as the watchful, binoculared eyes of Jimmy Stewart stare at me from my poster across the room, I can't help but feel like the oldest and crankiest 20-year-old I know. That said: Even though I may have walked into the Sycamore Cinema 12 looking sour, Disturbia managed to win me over. Mostly.
The story is that of Kale (Shia LaBeouf), a high-schooler whose otherwise pleasant existence is violently disrupted by an untimely death (in an opening segment that's as startling as it is gorgeously shot). His misanthropy eventually results in his placement under house arrest, to the dismay of his mother (Carrie-Anne Moss, how soon the mom roles have found you).
After a gorging of PlayStation and junk food, Kale begins to go stir-crazy within his own walls. Thank god a hottie has just moved in next door - Ashley (Sarah Roemer), who has a penchant for taking long swims right outside Kale's bedroom window. Relieving his boredom by ogling various neighbors, Kale begins to focus his interest on one Mr. Turner (David Morse), who may or may not be a serial murderer.
In another universe, a movie such as Disturbia might have been seen as groundbreaking - it comments on the voyeuristic pleasure of moviegoing, a topic film scholars are only too happy to debate endlessly. The one requirement of said universe: Rear Window, the 1954 Alfred Hitchcock masterpiece, needs to have never been made.
Even aside from the Hitchcock comparisons (the film's credits don't even mention the screenplay as being adapted, which raised my eyebrows a bit), Disturbia is only fairly good. Its cinematography and musical score are leaps and bounds above most teen-centric thrillers, but the plot jarringly leaps back and forth between the slapstick antics of the perils of house arrest and a potential murder, resulting in a befuddling atmosphere. It earns an entire star, though, for the skillfully executed action sequence at the climax of the film, which walks the line between gory and suspenseful in a way Hitchcock might have smiled at.
LaBeouf is charming, playing Kale as a student of the Adam Brody School of Quirk. Ronnie, his best friend, played by Aaron Yoo, is actually much more intriguing and energetic, if coming off a tad manic at times. Roemer, who's put in the Grace Kelly role, is a disappointing blank of a character, with the romantic plot providing the film with as much lame dialogue as it does sex appeal.
Disturbia doesn't provide much in the way of surprises - the twists I've kept covered up aren't incredibly shocking by any means. Instead, the film pulls its biggest revelation by simply being as good as it is.
E-mail DI reporter Anna Wiegenstein at:
anna-wiegenstein@uiowa.edu
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