THE MIST
Director: Frank Darabont Stars: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Andre Braugher, Toby Jones, William Sadler, Laurie Holden, Nathan Gamble, Jeffrey Demunn, Frances Sternhagen, Alexa Davalos, Chris Owen, Sam Witwer
Reviewed by MARCUS SINCLAIR
Based on a novella by Stephen King, The Mist, directed by Frank Darabont, comes as a bit of a surprise. Darabont, a Stephen King admirer and director of two other of his books that became box-office successes, The Shawshank Redemption (1994) and The Green Mile (1999), has made a film that has the look of being the work of a well-meaning amateur. Running over two hours and set mainly in a supermarket it tells of a group of people who are trying to stay alive as a strange mist envelopes their small rural town and its surrounds.
They are usual stock characters: the cynical New York lawyer who has no time for the locals; the sensible/natural leader type; the rustics who are easily lead; school teachers, local business men and the religious fanatic. Interesting enough in their own particular ways, but all could have been much better either in the hands of a more experienced director or filled by better actors. Yet under the circumstances those playing the elderly school-teacher, the store manager and the fanatic turn in performances that lift their characters and thus manage to maintain audience interest and hold the film together.
Time and time again the characters don't appear to be making actual contact with each other when they speak. Darabont's reaction shots are often well off the mark. We have them looking at the sides of the screen or, when photographed full on gazing past the camera and hence not at the viewers in the theatre with the result the intimacy between all is either weakened or destroyed. Also, his camera movements are awkward; the image is grainy as if it has been blown up from a video or 16 mm stock for the large screen. Yet at times this works, especially with the mist scenes: e.g. the run for the car, the raid on the pharmacy, the final escape.
As the plot develops the situation becomes complicated. Monsters appear out of the mist; the religious fanatic gets carried away with her power to sway people to her will, declaring that all has been brought about by God's wrath as punishment for the sins of the people. Even here her acting is uneven, the dialogue often forced and hackneyed, and the symbolic death pose – stretched out on the floor in the form of a cross – is pushing things too far within the Christian mythos.
The film's saving graces are (1) the attack of the monsters. This could have been developed into the usual blood bath, but Darabont handles it with restraint. (2) Certain scenes have a poetic eeriness about them that chill. (3) Tension is created throughout, but it gradually dissipates as the film continues. (4) The ironic ending is powerful. It is typical Stephen King at his best.