‘When bullies rise up, the rest of us have to beat them back down, whatever the cost…’
Frank Darabont’s trio of Stephen King adaptations (The Shawshank Redemption, Green Mile and The Mist) have secured his place in cinematic history. Aside from some made-for-TV movies, Darabont’s only other foray into feature filmmaking was The Majestic and while it was a flop upon release, it’s not as bad as some would have you believe…
The Majestic is two films rolled into one. On the one hand, it is the story of Peter Appleton (Jim Carrey), an aspiring Hollywood scriptwriter on the cusp of his big break who sees his ambitions thwarted by the Communist witchhunt of the McCarthy era. On the other hand, it is the story of Luke Trimble, a missing and presumed dead WWII veteran who turns up out of the blue in his hometown and attempts to reopen the cinema his father owned before the war (the eponymous The Majestic). The twist is that Peter Appleton and Luke Trimble are the same man.
It’s difficult to understand what went wrong with Darabont’s penultimate film. Perhaps audiences weren’t ready for a serious performance from Carrey (I’m not a fan of the man but I have to concede he does some excellent work here – particularly in the third act). Perhaps it is the fact that the rebuilding of the cinema is introduced and then pretty much dropped completely for much of the film’s conclusion. Either way, The Majestic was slammed by critics and failed miserably at the box office. I suppose one valid criticism is that as with most films about Hollywood, The Majestic is very pleased with itself and this becomes cloying in some of the more sentimental scenes.
That being said, despite all these misgivings, by the end I was invested in Peter Appleton’s plight and while it is undoubtedly Darabont’s least accomplished film, it’s still difficult to resist.
