I Am David

This is a lovely movie, beautifully filmed by Paul Feig in locations throughout Europe. The real problem faced by anyone trying to adapt this very interior book (see our review of North to Freedom) is finding a boy who can carry it off, and newcomer Ben Tibber portrays David with a heartbreakingly bleak and lonely nobility. He actually has few lines, so he accomplishes this primarily through posture and a remarkably readable face. Jim Caviezel does sterling work as Johannes, the only friend David has ever had; and Joan Plowright is warmly touching as Sophie, an elderly artist David meets along the way. Feig, who also wrote the script, partially solves central flaw in the book (where the plot turns on a huge and unlikely Dickensian coincidence) by turning it into a smaller, but still unlikely, coincidence.

But the movie is not without its own flaws, chief among them its too-short length (90 minutes), which leaves too much unexplained or missing entirely. The DVD contains many deleted scenes that should have been left in. Nevertheless, this is a thoughtful, intellectually and emotionally rich, and gently beautiful movie that, while aimed at children, doesn't for one moment condescend to them. It's a solid and moving attempt at filming a wonderful, but almost unfilmable classic children's book.