Apt Pupil (1998)

Different Seasons was the Stephen King collection that just kept on giving.  It was an anomaly for King at the time it came out, containing four novellas, three of which were not horror stories.  It was the point where he began to go beyond just doing genre fiction and, in some ways, maturing.  This side of king had always been there and bits had popped through in The Dead Zone and The Shining, but this is where he just went all in without using the supernatural as a crutch.  

The result was a collection of well-regarded stories that resulted in two of the most influential movies of their time, Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption.  The Breathing Method, the last story in the collection and the only horror entry, was never going to be made into a full movie, and if it ever does get produced will be lucky to be part of an anthology or television miniseries.  However, Apt Pupil was still there for the taking, and understandably had been held up because of the controversial material.  At the time none of Bryan Singer's own controversial issues had surfaced so, after the success of The Usual Suspects, I was interested in seeing how he would handle this story.  

Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) is a star athlete and straight-A high school student who becomes obsessed with the Holocaust after studying it in history class.  One night he sees a man on a bus (Ian McKellan) that he thinks he recognizes and begins gathering evidence, eventually showing up at his door to confront him.  The man is Arthur Denker, but Bowden is convinced he is Kurt Dussander, the former commandant of the Patin concentration camp and a wanted war criminal.  He is correct in this assumption and, in exchange for keeping silent, demands that Dussander tell him stories of what it was like.

The relationship is antagonistic, with Bowden taking advantage and forcing Dussander to wear a mock-up SS uniform and perform for him.  What he doesn't know is that he has awakened things long suppressed in the former Nazi, including his homicidal instincts.  For his part Bowden becomes obsessed with the power and confidence of the old man, with the two mutually blackmailing each other to make sure neither gets the upper hand. 

Pretty much a good two thirds of this film follows the story closely.  The last deviates, as the novella takes place over a few years, and the title is more appropriate as Bowden becomes more than a little influenced by the crimes Dussander committed.  Many people hate the ending to the movie version, but I appreciated it.  Apt Pupil the story had a usual Stephen King issue with a great idea, excellent characters and tight execution throughout 99 percent of the story but failing to stick the conclusion.  I think anyone adapting his stories usually finds themselves improving on the endings he wrote and, in my opinion, that is what Brandon Boyce did here.

That doesn't mean the rest of the adaptation is better or even equal to the story.  It does miss the mark on Bowden's slow embrace of a disregard for human life as well as the ideology that led to the Holocaust.  A good portion of the story was about how easy it is to accept and normalize evil while at the same time the toll it takes on one's humanity.  If anything Bowden, as played by Brad Renfro, just comes across as little more than an entitled teenager whose association with Dussander and privilege back up and already inflated sense of self-worth.  In that way both Boyce and Bryan Singer pretty much neuter the impact the movie should have had.

The best part of this is Ian McKellan, who can pretty much carry any movie on his own.  It is still a half-decent script, so he has a lot to work with and Apt Pupil would be completely forgotten without him.  He is able to convey so much with just a look in his eyes or tone of voice while also managing to avoid the trap of having the audience sympathize with an evil man who, despite the level of brainwashing he obviously went through to get to where he was, still reveled in the power it gave him in his prime.  This movie falls between The Usual Suspects and X-Men, and I don't know if we would have had McKellan as Magneto.

Apt Pupil has long been one of my favorite Stephen King stories.  It has always been hard for me to pinpoint what exactly is missing from this as it is, when all is said and done, a decent adaptation.  I still can't wholeheartedly recommend it as the shower scene was the beginning of the allegations against Singer for the exploitation of minors.  Although the ending is stronger than King's the movie, as a whole, falls flat, tripped up by its own need to make a statement while obscuring the one that had already been made in the source material. 

Apt Pupil (1998)

Time: 111 minutes

Starring: Brad Renfro, Ian McKellan

Director: Bryan Singer