It English Movie

'IT' sits well with its genre courtesy of some unruly violence in addition to the expected scares. Sep 9, 2017 By Vighnesh Menon

'IT' is a great exercise in sensing how challenging it is to adapt a thousand-page long novel into a feature-length movie or two.

Director Andy Muschietti rightfully chooses only the first half of the plot, leaving the rest for an obvious sequel, if not sequels. So, this 'chapter one' is essentially a prelude to what It, a.k.a., Pennywise the Dancing Clown is all about. That also means there won't be as many fireworks as one would expect from a tent-pole film; the perils of dividing your source material piece-by-piece.

Still, the horror icon everyone had anticipated is in sublime form.This is a character who tricks and deceives but also chokes and chews the very next moment. Bill Skarsgard dons the role of the demented clown with a shape-shifting, tone-shifting and mood-shifting performance. The monstrosity of 'it' is also accentuated by some bone-chilling editing and VFX, apart from a terrific update on the costume and make-up. The children who play members of the heroic Losers Club easily fit into their fictional personalities. Few viewers would forget the X-factor brought in by Finn Wolfhard as the trash-talking motormouth Richie to an otherwise unnerving film. Such impeccable casting decisions help 'It' become more than the sum of its individual parts.

What

makes 'IT' an engrossing watch is its willingness to spend time on a few touching sub-plots and characters amid the overbearing spooks and mystery that run amok. It also doesn't shy away from blurring the lines between reality and imagination, making for a viscerally frightening experience. As the characters fight their inner demons as well as the clown- again, simply a complex physical embodiment of their collective fears- we feel for their actions, the choices they make. By the end, the film happens to have more in common with coming-of-age films than hardcore horror flicks.

'IT' is neither subtle nor out-and-out as a horror film. Sometimes, its on-the-nose metaphors and shift of momentum rub you the wrong way. On other occasions, it's genre-fluid temptations boldly experiments within conventions. Therefore, 'It' can be described as simple yet mystifying, gory yet humanizing and flawed yet acerbic.