Bridge to Terabithia

Bridge to Terabithia is the latest victim of a modern media epidemic: ad misrepresentation. Advertisers have always aimed to compile the best, most salable bits of a film to make a trailer or TV commercial. Lately, though, it has come at the expense of actually communicating the plot and tone of the film they’re pitching. Terabithia seemed to be a Lord of the Rings meets Narnia formula fantasy from the material on display in the film’s marketing campaign, but it’s actually a bittersweet, mature tale of innocence lost. In truth, small children might actually be bored and confused by the film’s levelheaded take on imaginative youth. It’s not a feel good romp about magical creatures, but rather a story of loneliness and escapism weighted with the kind of realism not typically found in films shooting for young audiences.

Pint-sized prodigies Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb carry the film with such aplomb that you wonder why actors twice their age struggle so often to do the same. Hutcherson plays Jesse Aarons, the son of a working class family, downtrodden by the perils of grade school and seeking escapism through notebook sketches. His attitude slowly changes upon meeting Leslie Burke, (Robb) a charming sprite of a girl destined to burn out bright. She’s the imaginative daughter of two fiction writers and shares his passion for creativity. Most importantly, Leslie understands Jesse in ways that his more practical, financially stricken family cannot. The two set out to occupy their afternoons by creating an imaginary world just beyond the reaches of their backyards. They call it “Terabithia” and use it as a refuge from their worries at home and their troubles at school. Their imaginary new world comes to express their real life difficulties in its own magical ways. Meanwhile, their bond as friends progresses each one’s life into a delightfully more pleasant state of existence.

The circumstances shift and change in ways that are unfit to spoil, but the film is certainly a more complex exploration of childhood than most of its kind. It’s about the moments that harden children, the ones that make them angry and defensive where they were once timid and optimistic. The path to adulthood comes with devastation, but the hope of the film seems to be that with enough effort, people can reconnect with the magic they once believed before their world turned sour. It’s never quite the same, but it can be achieved, especially when it is shared with a new generation of young believers.

Grade: B+