Why remake Carrie ? It ’s certainly a question worth ask , especially in the ever - more crowded field of sequels , remakes , and reboots . Kimberly Peirce tries to update Carrie as a cogitation of bullying in the internet geezerhood . But the main reason to see this film is Julianne Moore ’s agonising take on Margaret White , Carrie ’s female parent .
Brian De Palma ’s 1976 adjustment of Stephen King ’s novel was an unsettling study of a young woman so break by violence and abasement that she seems inevitably driven to the plastic film ’s bloody coming . At a time when engineering science has increased the reach of bullying and we ’ve begin prosecuting hooligan whose victims kill themselves , the Carrie narrative may well be ripe for update .
And Peirce seems truly interested in retelling this tarradiddle of the cycles of violence , of ego - hate manifested as force against others . For all of its defect , her Carrie never feels cynical . And while it endure for its relative neutrality in the bloody prom , for the first 60 minutes , it delivers a thought - provoking story that makes us cringe in all the good situation .
Peirce work closely inside the lines of De Palma ’s framework , but sell De Palma ’s atmospherical approaching for a more narrative one , borrowing a bit more hard from King ’s novel without slavishly adhering to it .
If De Palma ’s film was a study of Carrie White , Peirce ’s is a study of all the women surrounding Carrie , who impart to — or fail to halt — her ruin . Chloë Grace Moretz is the titular Carrie , a societal castaway whose pretty face is hidden beneath wild tomentum and sack - like clothes , whose deeply religious and mentally disturbed female parent ( Julianne Moore ) has allow for her so ignorant of anything potentially sinful that Carrie is terrorise by the belated first appearance of her period .
When Carrie stumbles out of the cascade , panicked and screeching for aid , she is subjected not to understanding , but to that infamous scene of tampon - flinging jeers , precede by the terrible Chris Hargensen ( Portia Doubleday ) and reluctantly accompany by Sue Snell ( Gabriella Wilde ) . The incident earns Carrie the attention of gym teacher Miss Desjardin ( Judy Greer ) , who swiftly draws Carrie under her protection , and kick off a sequence of event that ends with that tragical nighttime at the prom .
In exploring that powerful central image of blood and the inner life of the various distaff characters , Peirce ’s Carrie actually does a significantly better task than De Palma ’s in cable its character ’ motivation .
Sue Snell , standing at the leaflet of fair sex , worries that she is n’t a very skillful person and looks to penalize herself and make Carrie somehow whole — but she is n’t quite as ripe about it as one fiber head out she should be . Chris is feel herself at the apex of her plenteous , red-hot teenage girl power , which promises to fade after she takes off her graduation crownwork and night-robe . And when that power is kidnap from her untimely , she unleashes her ire upon the most vulnerable target : Carrie . And , while it ’s not a comedic role , Greer ’s part - thespian chops make her a perfect fit for Miss Desjardin , who has spent enough meter with high shoal girls to understand their power moral force and get laid that sometimes a girl just need to hear that she ’s pretty .
But it ’s Moore ’s Margaret White who provides the most indicative gain to the Carrie tale . Piper Laurie ’s Margaret could be almost overbearing in her spiritual fervour in the De Palma film , but Moore ’s version , with her stringy hair and perpetually pursed lips , is dour and injure . The in force scenes in the photographic film are between Moore and Moretz , where we see the terrible nature of their relationship . Margaret eff Carrie , in her way , but can not take her as a young woman who exist in the world , and Carrie longs for the acceptance her mother is incapable of feel .
We soon realize that while Margaret is a monster , she ’s a truly pitiable lusus naturae . This is a woman whose every fear has make out true , who despairs of the sin she sees in the world , who feels that her own sin has caused an irreparable rift in her individual , and who come across her daughter ’s telekinetic power as proof of the devil ’s influence . Margaret ’s abuse of Carrie is n’t opportunistic , like Chris ’ — rather , she misuse Carrie because harming her serves as an university extension of Margaret ’s own self - harm .
If this film had shifted to a primary study of Margaret White , it could have been a chef-d’oeuvre of domestic horror . Margaret may be mentally unstable , but we can understand why she fears Carrie and her ability . If anyone in this piece should develop telekinetic powers through sheer force of holy terror and will , it should be Margaret White .
Unfortunately , in this parable of promise , care , and power , Carrie herself begin a bit bemused . Sissy Spacek ’s Carrie was off - puttingly diffident ; we never get the sense that she deserves any of the insult heap upon her , but it ’s easy to see why she has no friend . She ’s been deeply damaged by the cruelties of home and high schooltime , with a minute windowpane left for resort .
In interview , Peirce has made it clearthat she wanted Moretz ’s Carrie to be a point - of - view character , an average young woman aside from her over-the-top home life . The moral is clear : Any of us could be Carrie , and there but for the grace of Stephen King go we . It also holds Carrie up as a depraved mirror to Chris Hargensen . Chris is a herculean missy who fear lose her mightiness , while Carrie is a powerless lady friend who revels violently when power add up to her .
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This is a change that ’s well meant , but cave the thesis of Peirce ’s pic . It feels disingenuous to portray Carrie as a fille fight and prodded until she snaps , without first showing us how naughtily bent she is .
Moretz ’s Carrie is mistrusting , and placing the 16 - twelvemonth - old actress next to the 20 - something actors throw away as her fellow high-pitched school day seniors helps to make her seem more round-eyed . But the Carrie who undertake to reason ( rather than plead ) through her female parent ’s madness does n’t seem like the same girl desperate enough to snap wood with her nous .
Certainly , even a girl with the appearing of inner strength might mow down her classmates given the right band of circumstances , but Sissy Spacek ’s Carrie felt like a military force of nature unleash by a kaleidoscope crack in her brain ; Moretz ’s feels like a kid with superpowers playing a bloody plot . Peirce take that we needed to wish Carrie , so we could find the intuitive buildup and disappointment of promenade , but I take issue . Asking those among us who have not experienced the horror of bullying and ill-usage to put ourselves in Carrie ’s astonishingly steely shoes , actually makes her tearing action less sympathetic . We do n’t have to care Carrie for root for her ; we just take to finger that she ’s been treat unjustly . And Spacek ’s wondrous clumsy portrayal of Carrie forced us to ask ourselves , “ Really , how would I have behaved toward Carrie White ? Even if I was n’t a Chris Hargensen , might I be one of the little girl laughing on the avocation , or like Sue Snell , wanting to be effective but unwilling to make a personal connecter ? ”
Of course , the fundamental setpiece of Carrie , the cause that the 1976 photographic film have on out so many VHS tapes during so many recent - night viewings , is the prom . All that cathartic gore was well suitable to De Palma ’s Carrie , but it ’s not really the narrative heart of Peirce ’s film ; it ’s more like a quick stab to the liver before moving on to picture show ’s true climax .
Peirce might have made up for skimping on the shocking death successiveness by continuing the uncomfortable exploration of violence and fear that pay back the picture started so swimmingly . But Peirce tries to deliver a more affirmative tale , a glimmer of hope that comes from neither De Palma nor King . The moral , it seems , is that Carrie is a cycle per second that we do n’t require to continually reprize ( even if we ’re still remaking this movie ) .
But whatever violence Carrie reenact against her town , or whatever message might get along out of it , is less compelling than the violence that bind her to her mother . By the end of the motion-picture show , we ’re less interested about whether Carrie White is burning in snake pit than we are about whether Margaret White is there beside her , stroke her fuzz .
BooksJulianne MooreMoviesRemakeStephen King
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