#55 - Of Mice and Men (1992)

This is the second of two movies that I have watched with my students because we're doing the novels in class, and of the two it's the one I liked less.  I suppose it all comes from the fact that I find the book pretty simplistic (at 107 pages, it's a quick read, even for me) and while it's interesting, I don't find it much deeper.  And for me, that makes any possible screen adaptation rely SO much on the characters that it's easy for it to go wrong.

Gary Sinise is a very mediocre George, but John Malkovich is a pretty good Lennie.  The character of Lennie, especially, is a tricky one.  The character is obviously mentally challenged, but in among the things he immediately forgets and his inability to know his own strength or fully appreciate the consequences of his actions, there lies an occasional lucidity that shows itself whenever his good buddy George tells him something.  Beyond this, neither the novel nor the movie are that complicated.

The pair has been together for a while now, and we learn that they've been run out of the last place they were working because of an unspecified "bad thing" that Lennie did.  It is obvious that despite all the talk these two of getting their own place and living off "the fat of the land" that this is never going to come to fruition.  Enter Sherilynn Fenn (she was in Twin Peaks! This is funny because I didn't know her from Adam before these simultaneous viewings) just to cause trouble.  Fie, Audrey Horn!

We just watched it and I'm amazed they were able to stretch it out to 110 minutes.  Mostly this happens because of several scenes of the teams actually working, which doesn't really happen in the novel at all.  At least, not in any sort of detail.  It did give the movie time to showcase the awful awful score, as well.  It smacks of all the crappy guitar-twanging country ballads from western movies that sound all the same.

Overall, it's just okay.  If it weren't part of the curriculum, I wouldn't have even cared if my kids saw it or not, and for the most part they didn't like it. This is mostly because a dog died.  I know this because they all went "Awwwww" and proceeded to exclaim that now they hated the movie.  Ah, children.

Score: 6/10