Preachy 'Birch' isn't 'Meaney'

"Simon Birch," suggested by John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen Meany," is dripping with Hollywood cliché from its very beginning. Simon Birch, the smallest baby ever delivered in Gravestown, a boy that no one gave a chance to live a day, much less a lifetime, dreams of being a hero. The boy with an undersized heart somehow has the biggest heart in the entire town.

And yet the character is so endearing and lovable that he is able to salvage a movie that suffers from an atrocious voice-over and some unskillful storytelling.

REVIEW
	Simon Birch 2 stars At Showcase

Simon (Ian Michael Smith) is a boy with destiny on his mind, and he feels that someday he'll perform some sort of miracle that will make the world around him a better place. Smith is so convincing in the part that he leaves the audience feeling as if he truly is the title character. Simon is the focus of the movie and an essential part of making things work, if the role was miscast the movie could have been a disaster.

A foul-mouthed and inquisitive dreamer, Simon is constantly on the outside looking in when it comes to the church, schoolmates and the world in general. One of the few people who he feels comfortable around is a school pal named Joe (Joseph Mazzello).

Courtesy of Hollywood Pictures Joe Wenteworth (Joseph Mazzello) and Simon Birch (Ian Michael Smith) are confronted by a large dog.

Joe seems able to relate to Simon, mainly because he, too, is an outcast. Born to a single mother (Ashley Judd), the identity of Joe's father remains a mystery and the source of much interest to the town's people. The two outcasts have a tight bond that is handled with care and skill by the makers of the film. The scenes between the two characters seem real and not as if they were pulled out of some Saturday morning kids show.

But as much as the makers succeed in dealing with the two boys, they fail in the other aspects of the picture.

Jim Carrey appears briefly at the beginning and the end of the movie, and is heard throughout it via a nauseating voice-over.

After the first two minutes of the movie, viewers know the fates of two main characters simply because the writer chose to include it. This information adds nothing to the beginning, and only takes away from the movie.

Ditto, later on when Carrey either alludes to what will happen next or simply tells the audience things that it can figure out on its own. This misuse of voice-overs comes across as an unnecessary filler that severely damages the film.

Another down point is Simon's family. Both of Simon's parents could care less about him and essentially give him free run of the neighborhood.

There is nothing more to the parents than the fact that they are mean, old people. The characters are so one dimensional and simple that they are completely unrealistic. When Simon gets in trouble and ends up at the Sheriff's office, his father suggests that he spend the night in jail rather than pick him up. And this is a grade schooler?

Simon's vision of himself as a hero seems all the harder to swallow when his parent's are taken into consideration. Someone had to keep planting the idea that he was special into the boy's mind at a very young age, and if it wasn't his parents then who was it?

Yet somehow, Simon developed into an insightful and bright young boy and it's his sly comments that keep the film above water. Simon constantly struggles with his lust for girls, all of whom seem to peg him as nothing more than cute - "she means cute like a baby turtle, and girls don't kiss baby turtles" - and his musings on the opposite sex carry truth for a person of any age.

Simon is cast as Baby Jesus in a church Christmas production and his behavior sets the stage for what turns out to be one of the year's funniest scenes. Smith is so on the mark, that the idea of award nominations for his performance isn't that unrealistic. And while some will say that the director overuses Simon to get laughs or that Smith's role may not be that far from his reality, the fact that he comes across as a funny and charming character is undeniable.

Overall, "Simon Birch" has some very funny parts, but the story is too off the mark for the movie to come together as a whole. The voice-over gives too much away, and the second part of the framing sequence with Carrey is painful to watch.

But the relationship between the two boys and an enchanting performance by Smith help "Simon Birch" squeak past the glut of average films crowding today's theaters.

09-16-98