Movie Review: To Kill a Mockingbird

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: Acting brings a powerful story to life

Cons: Mary Badham too old, slow first hour

The Bottom Line:

Once it gets going

You will find yourself enthralled

A classic story

Message That Still Resonates Today

I am a bit ashamed to admit my first exposure to the American classic story To Kill a Mockingbird came last year in the form of a stage play.  It was fabulous, and I quickly saw why the story is so well known.  When the movie was on TV a couple weeks back, I decided I needed to watch it.

The story is told through the memories of Scout, the young daughter of Atticus Finch (Gregory Peck).  During the summers of the 1930’s, Scout’s (Mary Badham) life is filled with playing with her older brother (Phillip Alford) and their visiting neighbor (John Megna).

But there is trouble in town.  A black man (Brock Peters) has been accused of raping a white woman (Collin Wilcox), and Atticus agrees to defend him.  Will he get a fair trial in this small Southern town?

The heart of this film is the courtroom drama and the fallout from it.  When the film is there, it is captivating.  The climax is emotionally harsh for several reasons, and I was surprised at how much I had come to care for the characters.

One thing that makes this work is the final act.  It doesn’t go where you expect it to, and the jolt packs much of the wallop of the story.

However, the movie suffers from some pacing issues.  The first hour builds character, but it does so slowly.  In fact, it’s hard to tell where exactly the plot is in all that is happening.  Yes, you need it to fully appreciate the second half, but dang is it slow.

My other gripe is with Mary Badham.  No, I’m not criticizing her acting because I think she does a fine job.  But it’s established that Scout is six and her older brother is twelve.  Yet she only looks a year or two younger than her brother.  That’s because Mary was actually ten when she was in this movie.  I’d argue that it would be hard for a six year old to pull off the part, but it kept throwing me out of the film when they mentioned her age.

As I said, she did a great job in the movie, as did the entire cast did.  The villains were a tad on the caricature side, but they didn’t have much time to develop.  Our heroes are great, however, led by Gregory Peck, who won an Oscar for his work here.  Other fun appearances are Robert Duvall in a small role and William Windom, who I know best from Murder, She Wrote, as the prosecutor.

While the children are the characters we see this story through, this is not a movie for children.  It involves rape and a few very tense, scary scenes as well as a couple of deaths.  All but one of these scenes takes place off camera, and nothing remotely graphic is shown.  Honestly, most of it will probably go over kid’s heads.  But I think you need to be a teenager to really understand and appreciate the story here.  The other thing to keep in mind is some uses of the N word.  While jarring today (as it should be), this is certainly in keeping with the time when the film was set.

Even though it was released in the early 60’s, it was filmed in Black and White.  Don’t let that scare you away because it’s important to see and think about the story presented here.

Obviously, the story shows the dangers of racism.  Unfortunately, it’s still something we need to be reminded about today.  But in a broad sense, it shows the importance of reviewing all the evidence and giving someone the benefit of the doubt instead of rushing to judge them.  That’s something that we seem to have forgotten, as we’ve seen time and time again in recent years.

And so the story and lessons of To Kill a Mockingbird are ones we need to reflect upon today just as much as we did 50 years ago.  Despite my complaints, I do recommend this film for those who want a refresher on this classic story.