Mette“The Blind Spot Series is a movie challenge created by Ryan McNeil at The Matinee. The goal is to watch one movie a month, over the course of one year. These should be films that you believe are essential viewings for every movie fan: they can be classics, cult films, modern masterpieces.” The series is currently being hosted by Sofia da Costa. Read more on her website Returning Videotapes.
“Yesterday was plain awful, but that’s not now, that’s then.”
I’ve realized that I often prefer choosing commercially successful movies over critically acclaimed ones as my blind spots. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard “ordinary” people talk about them all my life and thus feel the need to be able to talk about them. At least this is the case with Annie. It’s also a children’s movie, so even some of my friends that are my age talk about it nostalgically. In any case, we can agree that it was finally time for me to see this one.
1982’s Annie was the first cinematic adaptation of the 70s Broadway show. Set during the Great Depression, the story revolves around red-haired orphan Annie. Out of all children in the orphanage, Annie is chosen to spend a week living with the successful, yet cynical businessman Oliver Warbucks. Of course, Annie melts the old man’s heart and he decides to help her find her parents, as she is convinced they’re still alive. However, when a couple does show up on Warbucks doorstep and claims to be Annie’s parents, something just doesn’t seem right.
As I suspected, Annie is one of those movies that one should’ve seen when it came out. It doesn’t really hold up these days, especially since I had never seen it before. The direction feels exactly like I would expect a 1980s adaptation of a broadway play to feel like; very staged, overly clichéed and quite politically incorrect. There is a lot of badly hidden racism in it; although the foreign characters are good people, they have no clear cultural identity, are depicted as mystical figures who know magic and never talk, while their appearances are accompanied by stereotypical “Asian” sounds and music. It’s a lot to swallow.
I also found most of the characters annoying in some ways. Annie was way too sweet and optimistic, Oliver the opposite, Miss Hannigan too drunk and just bad through and through… basically, everyone is a walking cliché. Which makes sense, because this has been done a thousand times before and after this film. I just didn’t see how it was original in any sense, except for the catchy music. Maybe I just don’t understood the appeal because I’m not a child and never saw it as a child.
It’s not like I thought that Annie was plain awful. It’s an easy watch and enjoyable enough. But I didn’t really get why it’s such a big deal. Or have I just been reading too much into people’s opinion of this movie? Is it a lesser deal than what I think? I guess I’ll never know.
