IT: Chapter Two, A Review From a Reader’s Perspective

When I was an adolescent, The X-files was huge on Fox. I say huge, but lets be honest, it was all they had going for them, on a weak Friday night schedule. That’s neither here nor there though, what’s important is The X-files brought with it a delightful slogan — I Want to Believe. And I did want to believe then, and so I did. I believed there was a second, maybe even third shooter when JFK was killed. I believed that Area 51 housed alien artifacts. I believed that somewhere in the vastness of space, an intellect greater than our own was observing, measuring. I believed so badly that I felt an irrational hatred of Carl Sagan, who at the time said The X-files was absolute rubbish.

Two decades later I can say that Carl Sagan was completely right, The X-files is absolute rubbish. There wasn’t a second or third shooter when JFK was killed. There’s no alien artifacts at Area 51. And while the possibility exists that life has found a hold elsewhere in the universe, it’s not watching us.

That’s growing up. Losing beliefs. Becoming someone who trusts their eyes and not their minds. And that is what is fundamentally missing from IT: Chapter Two.

The creative team behind this movie (Muschietti, Dauberman, etc), I wonder if they read Stephen King’s book, and if they read it, I wonder if they understood it. Muschietti hit all the right notes with IT, and missing almost all the right notes with IT: Chapter Two, which makes me think that IT was simply a happy accident.

The fundamental theme of Stephen King’s novel is belief. How it influences children and how it’s lost upon adults. Much of the novel is directly tied to this idea. That the cycle results in a number children deaths (up to age 17 if I remember correctly). That adults can’t see IT. That adults don’t even notice the cycle.

The Loser’s Club ponders this as adults. Why are they different? They finally arrive at a point that’s taken in Muschietti’s film — that their experiences with IT, the battle they fought, changed them, perhaps infected them in some way. Muschietti takes this minor point and makes it a major one in the film. It’s a small bit of wonder in the novel, but in the film it’s the reason they fight IT a second time. If they don’t they’ll die from this “infection.”

Dauberman’s screenplay is all over the place though. It can’t decide what’s important or not. The “infection” is the key. But belief is key too, or at least it’s a throwaway line as they prepare to fight it. Bullying as a means of defeating a monster comes into play. Which could be interested if presented correctly — we must become monsters to kill this monster. But instead feels like it’s almost in poor taste, considering how bullying has become a culture that leads to suicide and other violent ends.

All of this is a damn shame, as King’s novel presented the easiest and best answers to the questions The Loser’s Club pose. Belief and fear. Simple as that.

Now, it’s true that King’s novel goes beyond those themes and deals with the idea of codependency, symbiotic relationships, and God as a benevolent, but ineffectual turtle. (God, I miss the turtle in these films) There’s plenty to shave off of King’s novel to make this film work, but instead of doing that Dauberman writes a screenplay that pays some homage to the themes of the book, but ultimately dismisses them.

The key to worldbuilding in film and in other mediums, is to establish rules and then stick to those rules. In Muschietti’s film the rules are never established until the end and even in that moment they lack consistency.

“It kills monsters. If you believe it does,” Beverly tells and increasingly scared Eddie Kaspbrak.

Lo and behold, belief makes an appearance. Eddie believes and uses said weapon and it appears to work. Until it doesn’t. So, here’s belief, on the table, now off again.

In King’s novel, belief is key for several reasons, but first and foremost, going back to the child/adult dynamic that he establishes, at a certain point in time, a person becomes unable to believe in shapeshifting clowns that feed off terror. When that happens IT becomes safe from that person. You can’t kill what you don’t believe in. It’s a metaphysical idea and not grounded in science or reality, but it’s the key to King’s novel. Pennywise has power over the children because they children are susceptible to belief. They believe he exists and they believe that these monsters are what they appear to be and in that belief blooms fear and that’s what IT feeds on. Likewise though, they’re only a threat to Pennywise if they believe in him. When they’re brought back to Derry, Pennywise tries to take advantage of their mental states, the adult and child mentalities warring within them. To believe or not to believe.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s a tough sell in the film industry, an industry based upon what is visually seen, not what the audience can ascertain from hints and innuendos. So to adapt the novel they must have felt some pressure to make IT more physical.

So be it.

Then don’t bring belief into it at all. Stick with your physicality. Although that doesn’t explain why the kids can see it and adults are somehow impervious. Not that you made any attempt to clear that up anyway. At two hours and fifty minutes I think you have time to, but hey, it’s not my film. It’s cool though, you can make something up without throwing belief into the mix. But here’s that pressure from fandom, from perhaps their own readings of the novel to put some aspect of belief into the film.

“They failed because they didn’t believe they could stop IT!” Mike pleads with the Losers. Have faith and believe and we can defeat IT. But that’s not the case.

A case could be made that the Eddie Kaspbrak “belief” scene is a red herring directed at the novel’s adherents. I may come to accept that. But even if that’s so, I wish it had been handled differently. From the moment Beverly hands him the weapon I was looking for the film to finally turn to questions of belief and the power of belief. It’s a big let down when that doesn’t happen.

All of the above gripes, and there are plenty more I haven’t included, are directed at story issue between book and film adaptation. Let’s move over to script and directing issues with the film itself.

King’s monsters are inspired by monster movies of the 50’s. Muschietti’s monsters are inspired by his film, Mama. Okay that’s a bit mean spirited. But lets be honest. Halfway through this film Muschietti stops being able to scare us because he tries to scare us the same damn way over and over and over again. His dramatic cues are much better. Which is why the first film was able to be such a happy accident. It was shorter, with less monsters, and more human drama.

Too much of IT: Chapter Two feels like a forced hand, an “I must cover this” instead of an “I want to cover this.” Scott Weinberg writes that this film is a discussion of how children adapt to and process trauma. And I think he’s right, insofar as that is the plan. The execution feels lacking in many regards though. On the one hand you have some characters dealing with unresolved human trauma and with others it seems to be unresolved Pennywise trauma and perhaps in some cases, both. But the filming of these various conflicting issues creates a middle section that eventually bogs down under it’s own weight. It begins with a bang but ends with a whimper. If Muschietti and company wanted to explore trauma it would’ve served their purposes better to keep within the theme of human or Pennywise, rather than mix the two and create a muddy solution that they are then forced try and strain into something clear and coherent in the last fifty minutes.

The other issue that arises in underwriting and overwriting characters. Beverly, a victim of some kind of family violence, resorts to marrying a man of family violence as an adult, but there is zero exploration of this. Instead, Jessica Chastain is forced to look wistfully into the foreground and dream about Bill for the majority of the film. There’s zero exploration of the character and that’s a damn shame as she’s the glue that keeps the Loser’s together for all intents and purposes.

On the other end of the spectrum, Mike is overwritten. I suspect this was an attempt to correct perceived issues with King’s iteration of the character. Give him more agency in the story and make him less the token black guy. But the reality is that he’s not the token black guy with mental issues. At least that’s how he’s written. He’s written so unhinged that it’s a wonder any of the Loser’s stick around the night in Derry, regardless of what the script has written in to make them stay (natural leader Bill gets them to stay, plus the fear of inevitable death by Pennywise infection). It’s foolish. And unsettling. And again, a damn shame.

The end result of all this is film that only works because Bill Hader is an amazing actor.

I haven’t talked about Hader, but he made me cry…three times…in this film. And he becomes the glue that hold’s the film together even as everything else falls apart.

The thing is, his devastation, his grief, some element of that should have been written into every single character in this film. Either it wasn’t, or Muschietti isn’t adept enough to bring it out. Instead, the weight of this film falls squarely on Bill Hader’s shoulders. Shoulders that should (but won’t) be nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor.

Two out of five stars, from this, one of King’s Constant Readers.