Perspectives: 'Bridge to Terabithia' -- Let's hear it for mindful entertainment

by Marc Newman, Guest Columnist
February 19, 2007

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(OneNewsNow.com) - - Unlike many children's films that make a farce of threats many children face, Bridge to Terabithia strikes a frighteningly real chord in its depiction of school-yard life. The kids that populate the film are complex. Parents who really watch the movie will recognize the children in it -- and themselves as well. My hope is that afterwards, parents will hug their children and talk to them about the real life they live when they get on the school bus.

Many parents despair when they take their children to a film "aimed" at kids. Obligatory toilet humor, excessively broad slapstick, and fortune-cookie plot formulas rarely hold an adult's attention. And when the film is over there's not much to talk about that hasn't been drilled endlessly into our children as part of our national obsession with feel-good, self-esteem oriented agendas: "just be your self," "just keep trying," "you can do it," "you are great just the way you are," "it's okay to be different" -- the list goes, horrifyingly, on and on. It's not that these are necessarily bad messages, but their rah-rah spirit rarely reflects the realities of many children's lives.

The best films do not preach, they evoke. That is why Bridge to Terabithia is the best kid's film for adults I have seen in years. Directed by Gabor Csupo, from the best-selling children's classic by Katherine Paterson, the movie tells the story of Jessie Aarons, a boy from a poor, struggling family who strikes up a friendship with the new girl in town, Leslie Burke. Both outcasts in their own ways, they create an imaginary world in the woods just beyond the creek where they can face their demons and find ways effectively to fight back. If you have seen the trailers, you might mistakenly believe that this film is another family-friendly CGI fantasy film -- and you would be right, but not at all for the reasons you suspect.

Unlike many children's films that make a farce of threats many children face, Bridge to Terabithia strikes a frighteningly real chord in its depiction of school-yard life. The kids that populate the film are complex. They have their own views concerning issues as deep as theology and as magical as the blush of adolescent attraction. The film does not shy away from the scarring sides of life either, but, where the children can, they not only repent of wrongs inflicted, but work toward restitution and reconciliation as well.

The trials of adolescence

Determining where you fit into the artificial social structure known as public school is depicted as the daunting task it is. The pecking order depends on your socio-economic class, your skill sets, and your reputation. Jessie is a kid on the fringes. You know that his family is poor when you see him wearing hand-me-down sneakers that, obviously, once belonged to his older sister. He is consistently bullied by the "popular" boys from the more well-off families in town. Home is not much better. The middle child, Jessie is set upon by his mean-spirited sisters. The only boy, he serves as the sole available receptacle of his father's frustrations and misplaced wrath. Jessie finds solace in drawing, and status in being the fastest runner in his school -- until Leslie shows up.

Leslie is the new girl in town. A little bohemian, Leslie is ignored by her upscale parents (at least when they are working on their novels). But she is friendly, an imaginative and talented writer, and a blur on the race track, whipping all comers. But being the new girl in town, Leslie is the target of bullies keen to put her in her place. Both marginalized, Jessie and Leslie fall in together.

Looking beyond the surface

If this story were in the hands of a less-competent writer or director, the movie would devolve into a see-saw of attacks and vengeance with the "good" kids finally giving the "nasty" kids their comeuppance. But Bridge to Terabithia refuses to simplify the complex world of kids. While some of the children are just plain jerks, others simply lash out to mask their own secret pain.

Bullies being punished, particularly when accompanied by humiliation, can be cathartic to the many kids who have been victimized. There is some of that in Bridge to Terabithia, but it is accompanied by the more subtle and risky ideas that revenge is not always so sweet. The alternative, loving your enemies, sometimes, but only sometimes, heals deep pain and results in them becoming your friends. Figuring out how to accomplish that difficult task takes the kids out of themselves, and into their imaginative world of Terabithia.

J.R.R. Tolkien argued that human beings are sub-creators. In other words, we are driven to create in imitation of our Creator. Many of the fairy tales that Tolkien told and analyzed incorporated the ideas of fantasy as sub-creation that allowed its authors and readers to recover ideals that might be lost in our waking world, to escape to that world to seek a better life, and to find consolation there in imitation of the Greatest Story Ever Told. I think Tolkien would have liked Terabithia.

This imaginative world, created by Leslie's words and populated by creatures that spring from Jessie's art, serves as a testing ground. It is there that the children recreate their conflict in new light, open to experimentation until an optimal solution is discovered. By looking at problems in their sub-created world, they find answers that they can try in this one. The results are astounding, but to give them away would spoil too much of what makes this film unique.

The theology of the innocent

Beyond the physical and emotional conflict the children face at school are the theological conflicts that arise, at ages earlier than most parents would ever suspect. Children's films are nearly devoid of direct theological content, so it is refreshing to see Jessie reluctantly invite Leslie to church with him. And even though she will "have to wear a dress," Leslie accepts.

You get the idea that Leslie's parents are kind, but not Christians. Leslie appears to be a newcomer to this (or any) church. Unlike the Aaron's children who feel forced to both attend and believe, Leslie goes to church of her own volition and discovers that she loves it. There is more than one significant conversation about believing in God's Word, heaven, and hell. And even if the theology is not always quite right -- it rings true. These are just the kind of arguments/discussions you would expect children, who are trying to work things out and make sense of the world, to have. They also open up the opportunity for parents to speak with their own children after the film to see what they really believe.

Dealing with tragedy

Like the best films aimed at children (Old Yeller and Sounder come to mind), and like "real life" Bridge to Terabithia requires children to confront tragedy. And, just as in the real world, not all of the kids handle it in the same way. Some brood, others lash out, they feel grief, feel guilt. Adults try to respond in a mature fashion, showing children how to comport themselves through tragedy, and demonstrating that they are not alone. The world can be a dark place, and difficult to understand. As a result, parents will need to exercise some caution about taking children younger than nine or ten. Bridge to Terabithia is not simply a romp in the woods (although, at times that romp is glorious), it is also a baptism into the world. What makes the film magical is its ability to move between the two to show how each illumines the other.

Repentance and restitution

There is little false sentiment in Bridge to Terabithia. Parents will recognize the children in it, and themselves as well. Humans are capable of beautiful things, but at our core we are sinners -- kids included. Meanness has repercussions, as does vengeance. Eventually only one road to healing opens up before us: the path of repentance, restitution, and reconciliation.

At my press and promotional screening, the crowd applauded at the end of the film, and not a few adults were wiping tears from their eyes. With so many movies rightfully accused of being "mindless entertainment," it is a blessing to see such thoughtfulness in a film. This is a movie from a kid's point of view that respects the adults in the audience. Returning home, my hope is that parents will hug their children and talk to them about the real life they live when they get on the school bus. That they will talk with their children about their fears, their friends, and the wondrous nature of this world created by a God who loves them and wants them to know Him. Bridge to Terabithia touches on all these things; and it is up to parents to make the most of this beautiful gift.