Bridge To Terabithia

Yesterday I took Kyla to see this movie, and I walked out of the theatre with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

My advice to anyone who is planning on seeing this movie is, “DON’T”, at least not if you're expecting to see another version of "The Chronicles of Narnia". If you are not planning on heeding my advice, then I warn you not to read any further until after you have seen it, but I highly recommend that you take my advice and read what I’m about to say.

***SPOILERS***

I did not know much about this movie going in, only what I had seen from the trailer, and from that, I was under the impression that it was going to be another “Narnia” type movie where a couple of kids find their way into a fantasy land and have an adventure.

Why did I think this? Because that’s how it was being promoted. Turns out, that not only is this not what the movie is about, but apparently even the filmmakers were unhappy with the advertising campaign being misleading.

This movie is not about a couple of kids who find a fantasy land outside their back door and have an adventure, instead it is about a couple of kids who imagine a fantasy land outside their back door and pretend to have an adventure. That’s right, the place isn’t real, it’s all in their imagination.

The thing is, this isn’t even what I have the problem with. It was definitely a big letdown to me because I was mislead into believing that I was going to see a movie about one thing and in fact it was something else entirely, but I was actually willing to forgive this, and might have been able to enjoy the movie for what it actually was, if it weren’t for one other fact, the girl dies. That’s right, the cute little girl with the infectious smile and overactive imagination is killed about 2/3’s of the way into the movie, and the movie then shifts from being a movie about 2 kids and how they deal with the problems of normal life by making up a fantasy play land, to one kid learning how to grieve over another kids death, and then learning how to be a better person by learning from the life that she lived and by keeping her memory alive.

The movie is supposed to end on an inspiring note as the other kid does indeed keep her memory alive and brings his little sister into the fold, and the two of them continue to play in the imaginary land of Terabithia, but I did not feel good at the end of this movie.

To me it was gut-wrenching and as I have already stated, I walked out of the theatre with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and a haunting emptiness that lasted all day.

Maybe it’s just me, I don’t know, but with all of the terrible things that go on in this world today, I don’t want to see a movie that involves the tragic death of a10 year old girl. That’s not my type of entertainment. Or at the very least, I want to know going into it that this is not going to be the feel good movie it is being portrayed as.

Hey don’t get me wrong, I love stories that have shocking twists to them, in fact they are probably my favorite types of stories, and a lot of times the best ones are the ones where you’re not expecting anything shocking to happen.

But this is a kid’s story, and I don’t expect to see something like this happen in one of those stories, at least not in a story that I am assuming is safe to bring my 6 year old daughter to.

Sure Kyla’s seen death in movies before. She’s seen and loves all of the Harry Potter movies, The Chronicles of Narnia, Charlotte’s Web, and others, but none of the deaths in any of those movies had the same affect as this one.

The strange thing is, it didn’t seem to bother Kyla at all. As soon as we got out of the theatre she did what she always does after we see a movie and said, “Can we get the DVD?” When Penny asked her if she felt sad, she said no, and we didn’t really pursue it after that, so it doesn’t seem to have affected her at all; which is fine, but it sure had an affect on me.

Finally I want to say that I know that there are probably a lot of people out there who read this book and are going to defend both the book and the film by saying that the book is a masterpiece of great writing and study of human emotion and the film stayed true to it. And that I should be looking at this story for what it is and not what I was led to believe it was going to be.

That's your opinion and you're entitled to it. And maybe it is a great study of human emotion, but I don't care, because I did not go to the theatre to see that kind of movie, I went to see a fantasy movie, and I came out of the theatre feeling about as depressed as I ever had in my life.