The Tomorrow When The War Began Film, An American's Review

Disclaimer: I apologize in advance for this long post.  It's long.  

The last time I wrote about one of my favorite books Tomorrow When The War Began by John Marsden, I was anxiously anticipating its recently produced film to make its way to me here in the States.  Well my happy people, the joyous package arrived in my mail yesterday.  That is after hoping for years that a film would be made on the books, drooling over the trailers when said film finally came into being, formulating far fetched plans of rowing to Australia to see the film, and later pre-ordering the DVD, the TWTWB movie was on my doorstep.  O frabjous day!  After all the ears I've talked off announcing my praises for this series over the years, I feel that it is only right for me to offer a review of said movie.  An American's review, obviously, because I am in fact an American.  I apologize in advance to Australians everywhere if I sound ignorant in any of my commentary, I mean no offense.  Love you guys.

My previous review of the TWTWB books I featured in a post last November, so check that out if you want.  The story is about a group of seven Australian teenagers who go on a camping trip during their Christmas holidays, more specifically over the weekend of Commemoration Day.  When they return, they find their homes abandoned and their families missing.  They begin piecing together the facts of the confusing situation until they figure out the only plausible story they could think of where all the pieces fit: their country has been invaded and their families have been captured.  The group, soon joined by an eighth teenager, steps into the role of guerrilla soldiers, attempting to combat the invading forces and reclaim their homes.  It's a hell* of a ride.  *wink

Marsden clearly crafted his books in an extraordinary way.  His readers can relate to the characters and while the story may seem far fetched, it's quite believable. As a reader I found myself wondering what I would do were I to find myself in a similar situation; I feel this is a hallmark of good literature.  Then I saw the American film Red Dawn from 1984 and decided I'd leave the guess work up to pros like Marsden.  It was because of my deep affection for this book series that I hoped for a film adaptation, and a decent one at that.  I don't know how it is in Australia, but in the States it has long been the norm that book to film adaptations are generally horrible.  Sometimes if you watch the film without thinking about the poor book it ripped off and left to rot, then you might find yourself acceptably amused.  It was because of this I had a reservation, and an expectation, for a TWTWB film.  I must say that overall this film did not disappoint.  American film directors ought to take a leaf out of Stuart Beattie's hat.

On the casting and characterization, my thoughts are as follows.

Ellie Linton and Lee Takkam

Ellie was one of my favorite characters in the books, namely because with her as the narrator I saw most of the story through her eyes.  I also like Ellie's aloof personality and her sense of humor.  Ellie was played by actress Caitlin Stasey.  

Pros: I felt that Stasey really embodied Ellie, which wasn't an easy task in my sight as Ellie is basically the main character of the story.  Stasey had a great chemistry with the other actors, especially with Rachel Hurd-Wood who played Ellie's best friend Corrie.  Their relationship brought me to tears in some parts, which I credit the actresses' chemistry.  I felt the same connection in the film between Ellie and Corrie that I felt in the books and that I feel in real life with my best friends.  

Cons: As with any book to film adaptations, readers have to reconcile the way they pictured characters in the book to the way they're represented in the film.  Thus my only con for Ellie in the film is simply I didn't picture her quite as charming and beautiful.  No offense Ellie of the book.  To the film's credit, Ellie's physical appearance is never really described in detail so this is a freebie.  

Lee was always a minor character in my mind, no offense buddy.  I wasn't ever a real fan of him for reasons unknown.  Lee was played by actor Chris Pang.

Pros: The Lee of the film really grew on me.  He's still not my favorite character, but the film actually helped me see Lee a little better.  I was also pleasantly surprised by the chemistry between Pang and Stasey (Ellie); I can see Ellie and Lee as a couple in the film.  

Cons:  Due to my precedence with Lee, I was hesitant to liking Lee in the film at all (like I said I warmed up to him).  I will say that he didn't immediately fit as Lee in my mind the way some of the other actors did, but again that's the reader interpretation fallacy I mentioned.  A real con, I felt, to Lee in the film was that some of his lines were on the awkward side.  In the book Lee was the reserved-turned-pro-fighting guy who was prone to rather insightful comments that took the other characters by surprise.  In the film what I took for those insightful comments were actually quite abrupt and awkward; I feel with some minor tailoring to some of the lines, however, this could have been corrected.  In the grand scheme of things, this wasn't a show stopper.  

Homer Yannos and Fiona Maxwell

Homer is my top favorite character in the book.  I always liked his rough and tumble sort of personality. He seems like a fun guy to hang around.  In the film, Homer is played by actor Deniz Akdeniz.  

Pros:  If his name wasn't charming enough, Akdeniz is one beautiful man.  Even if Homer wasn't my favorite from the books, he certainly was after seeing this film.  Akdeniz hit Homer spot on and rounded out his character perfectly.  Akdeniz blended Homer's boisterous, trouble-maker personality well with his guerrilla mindset.  I especially loved the tribute to Homer's history of waiting for repairmen to go up on the roof and then stealing their ladders.  Hilarious.  Also, his attraction towards Fi (Fiona) was simply adorable.  

Cons:  I honestly don't have a single con about Homer.  

Fiona is rarely (if ever) referred to as such in the books, I always knew her as Fi.  Obviously this is the shortened version of her name, but me in my infinite quirkiness got it in my head that her name rhymed with pie.  Any other logical minded human being probably recognized that Fi had to have been short for Fiona and thus rhymed with fee.  I rest my embarrassing case.  Anyway, so Fi (I have since reconciled to   what her name actually is, for the record) is the porcelain doll turned unexpected bad ass.  I love her.  She's played by Phoebe Tonkin in the film.

Pros:  Tonkin wedded Fi's "city-girl" side with her bad ass side brilliantly.  She's gorgeous, yes.  She's rich, yes.  But she's not a snob and she's not completely useless.  Tonkin was quite possibly one of my favorite of the film characters.  She was the girl who never really knew a life outside of town, but she wasn't an air-head (her mother, on the other hand... see below).

Cons: The film had two glaring stereotypes (three actually, with Lee's family, but that was bound to happen) that I wasn't a fan of, Fi's family was one of them.  Fi comes from a wealthy family who lives in a big house in town while the other teens are "rurals." No problem.  Well in the film, our first glimpse of Fi is this...

Yes, they're talking to each other.  On the phone.  Three feet apart.  

Ugh, the stereotype permeates even the picture sans the acting.  Layer on Fi's mother's horrendously fake mannerisms, and you've got one part of the film that in my mind never happened.  I always felt that Fi and her family, while wealthy, were meant to be decent, ordinary people just like the other teens' families.  Instead her mother, at any rate, was portrayed as an utter snob.  Fortunately, this ate up all of one minute, two tops, of the film and it didn't affect Fi's character.  

Corrie Mackenzie and Kevin Holmes

Corrie was always dear to me because as Ellie's best friend, I felt protective of Corrie in the way I feel about my best friends.  Corrie is the friend who's more like a sister because of how long she and Ellie have known each other.  Rachel Hurd-Wood portrays Corrie in the film.  

Pros:  Corrie is spunky and admittedly a little boy-crazy without, again, being stereotypical.  Her chemistry with Stasey (Ellie), like I said before, was very genuine.  

Cons: My only issue with Corrie has actually nothing to do with her character.  At the beginning of the film Ellie receives a text from Corrie which prompts her to ride a dirt bike over to Corrie's house.  The film then shows us that the town of Wirrawee is preparing for Australia Day by having Ellie pass by the showground.  While this was a technique to show, rather than tell, the audience about Australia Day, it didn't quite work in the logistics of the story.  Corrie was supposed to live outside of town, like Ellie.  When the teens return from their trip and start trying to figure out what happened, they go to Ellie's, Homer's, Kevin's, and Corrie's respective houses.  They don't go into town right away.  But based on the placement that Corrie lived close enough to town that Ellie had to pass through it on the way to Corrie's house, they would have had to go dangerously close if not into the town itself to get to Corrie's after the trip.  This one con, however, can be summed up thusly: I am a book freak and I doubt no one else really cares about this detail.  I just wanted to appease the freak in me.

Kevin was the older guy who only came on the camping trip because he was dating Corrie, and as Ellie suspected, Corrie mightn't have been as apt to go if Kevin wasn't involved.  Kevin was described as appearing rather dense, but he is later understood as just being on the quiet side.  He's really loyal to Corrie, which is beautiful especially given what they go through.  Kevin was played by Lincoln Lewis, whose name I love.

Pros:  Lewis did a splendid job with Kevin's loyalty to Corrie.  He has his moments, but in the end he really comes through.  Also, he has this awesome dog named Flip whose name I am seriously considering using to name my own dog.  Here's Flip now!

Flip!

Cons:  I was never that invested in Kevin's character to really have any cons about him in the film.  

Robyn Mathers and Chris Lang

Robyn was a cool cat.  She always stuck to her beliefs and was in general a good-hearted person.  She was played by Ashleigh Cummings in the film.

Pros:  I'm sorry to say but I don't really have any pros for Robyn in the film.  While I liked her in the book, in the film...

Cons: Robyn was the one character I still can't completely accept in the film.  I was able to accept Lee, but for some reason I didn't see Robyn at all the way she was portrayed in the film.  She had a mousy quality about her, like she spent too much time in a church.  This was the second glaring stereotype in the film, even more annoying to me than Fi's mother in fact.  Robyn's parents were supposed to be very strict and her father was a pastor.  The film took this to the extreme that, lest we forget that Robyn and her family were "religious," in practically every scene that we see Robyn's father (it's a relatively short period of time, fortunately) there's always the perfect angle of the shot so we see a crucifix on his wall, there's crosses and angels everywhere in Robyn's yard and house, and Robyn herself has a strategically placed cross necklace that catches the light as she picks up a gun later in the film.  We get it, they're religious.  This wasn't such a glaring, in your face concept in the books.

There was hand holding involved.  Seriously.  That bad.  

This is the scene where Ellie, Robyn, and Corrie (not pictured) are attempting to convince Robyn's father (opposite the image) to allow Robyn to go on the camping trip.  All three girls obviously went to great lengths to appear extremely conservative in their appearances and Robyn spent the whole time talking about how it was good for the teens to get away from the "pressures of the world" (or something like that) and get closer to God in nature.  I think my biggest problem with this is the liberty taken from Robyn's parents in the book- there is nothing to indicate that they were so stereotypically "religious."  They were strict, yes, and Robyn was always the moral center of the group, yes, but this was taken to an unrealistic extreme in the film.  While I was able to drop the issue I had with Fi's mother, I really can't let this one go.  Even still, it doesn't deter my overall opinion of the film.  

Last but not least is Chris, the stoner who joins the gang after the invasion.  Chris was the loner sort of guy who smoked and wrote, both in excess.  He has a tragic sort of aspect to his character.  While not my absolute favorite, I always liked Chris.  He was a cool guy.  In the film he was portrayed by Andrew Ryan.

Pros:  While I don't agree that Ryan was the best choice to portray Chris, I feel that in any book to film there are certain liberties that have to be made and I can accept the ones that are committed to and delivered soundly.  Ryan just happened to do this and for that I give him credit.  He played a laid back, almost hippie-like stoner with a sense of humor that wasn't jaded by the awful things he'd seen since the invasion.  

Cons:  Chris was exactly the opposite of humorous.  He was actually rather despondent and depressed.  He didn't really have anything to fight for, in his eyes, as his parents were overseas when the invasion took place.  He had a very dark side and spent a lot of his time writing.  He did smoke, yes, and was described as a stoner in school, but he didn't have the "happy go lucky" sort of personality of the Chris in the film.  This is one of his poems that Ellie read:

They will carry me to the field

Through the wreaths of mist

Moist on my face,

And the lamb will pause

For a thoughtful stare.

The soldiers, they will come.

They will lay me in the dark cold earth

And push the clods in upon my face.  

(The Dead of Night, John Marsden, pg. 264)

Basically my con with Chris is, while his portrayal in the film was a sound character, he was almost two completely different Chris' between the book and the film.  Taken alone, the film was fine in this aspect however.  Again, this is me being nit-picky.  

Overall, I loved the film.  My greatest disappointment is that it didn't cover all seven books, but alas I think I can forgive them... My pros and cons of the whole film are as follows.  

Pros: It's got to be the best adaptation I've ever seen; I feel the director committed to the book instead of abandoning it like most other adaptations I've seen.  I also like how they made the story to fit our standard of modern.  The books were published in the early 1990s and were set in modern times, albeit an alternate-universe.  As it is the 2000s, times have changed slightly.  This was most specifically seen in the film's use of cellphones.  While they didn't have cellphones in the book, it would have been weird for the characters to not have them in the film. The scene where they're all trying to get a connection of any sort to the outside world, e.g. via television, radio, etc. the first thing the whole group does is whip out their cells, only to receive a no signal message.  I also noticed that Ellie had a Macbook Pro, which made me smile (as I have one).  This was a great tribute to Marsden's creation of a timeless book series.  

Cons: I daresay, the film almost relied too heavily on the audience knowing the story.  This could be because the book series is the Hatchet and To Kill A Mockingbird of Australia, i.e. it's, as I understand, a school reading list staple in Australia; as the film was produced and released in Australia, it's not a stretch to assume that most people would know the story.  

Even still I wish the film had introduced the conclusion that the teenagers come to, that they've been invaded, more realistically.  In the book they searched some of their houses looking for clues as to why their families were all gone and their homes abandoned.  When they got to Corrie's house, they discovered a fax Corrie's father sent that said, "Corrie, I'm in the Show Secretary's Office.  Something's going on.  People say it's just Army manoeuvres but I'm sending this anyway, then heading home to tear it up so no one'll know what an idiot I've been.  But Corrie, if you do get this, go bush.  Take great care.  Don't come out till you know it's safe.  Much love darling, Dad" (TWTWB pg. 73).  I only point this out because this was the first real evidence the teens found that not only explained perfectly all the puzzling clues they had, but also introduced the sinister idea that they'd been invaded.  Without the note, an invasion would have made as much realistic sense as if a group of American teens found themselves in the same situation.  It wouldn't.  The film omits this entirely however and the group seems to make that leap and decide that they've been invaded solely on the evidence that: they saw planes flying overhead while out camping, their families are nowhere to be found, and their homes haven't been looked after in days.  As I said the film almost relied too heavily on knowing the story, if I had seen the film without any knowledge of the books I would have had no idea how they jumped to that conclusion.  

Now if I had a dollar for every time I referenced "the book(s)" in this post thus far, I would be a very rich college student.  As it is I don't and I'm not.  My detailed criticism aside, one of the ways this film sealed the deal for me was a choice scene plopped in the middle for good measure, and it just might make all my book references worthwhile:  The group of eight are back at their camp and Ellie asks Corrie about the book she's reading.  Corrie makes a comment to the effect that "It's better than the movie was," which Ellie responds with, "They always are."  

I just want to give the director a big hug for this little gem.  Why?  Because that scene seemed to show that Beattie acknowledged that the film wasn't going to be able to replace the books, and furthermore that it shouldn't.  This is the prime area I feel many American directors so often fail at adaptations; books can't be topped.  Okay in some extreme cases where the book may have been awful to begin with and the only direction to go from is up, maybe, but in the vast majority of the cases the book is always better.  This doesn't mean the film is pointless, however.  Film adaptations are lovely because, when done right (hint hint), they give fanatic readers (such as moi) another chunk of the wonderful story to feast on.

Thus, in my marathon reviewing extravaganza, I would highly recommend this film.  Basically, the film took a book series I love dearly and created an acceptable film, not as a replacement, but in addition to the books.  Still, I recommend the books even more.  Whether you're American, Australian, or Anaractican, the books draw you in and intertwine your fate with that of the characters.  You won't regret reading this series.  I hope you enjoy the movie as much as I did, as well.  

One last thing, if you're American, I had a heck of a time seeing this movie.  So far the film has only been released to DVD in Australia and possibly New Zealand; I ordered my copy online from Australia.  It's worth noting that the DVD is coded as Region 1, which means that most DVD players in the U.S. won't play the disc as our DVDs are Region 4.  I found that my Macbook Pro will let me reset the region code, so I was able to view the film.  However it said I could only set the region four times which makes me wonder if that means I can only have it set to one or the other and that I'd ultimately have to choose between the two.  I found some information online that leads me to believe I might be able to make my computer region-free, as a potential resolution.  I don't know if PCs offer the region adjustment.  The other option is to get a region-free DVD player.  I've been looking into this and found a couple reasonably priced (i.e. 30 to 60 dollars range) ones on Amazon.  I just thought I'd throw that out there.  Obviously I have a copy, if any of my friends out there would like to borrow it sometime.  

Cheers everyone!  Go read!    

Love, 

RF