Apt Pupil (23 October 1998)
directed by Bryan Singer
starring Brad Renfro, Ian McKellen, Ann Dowd, Bruce Davison
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MPAA rating: Studio: Bad Hat Harry Productions, Canal+, Paramount Pictures, Phoenix Pictures, TriStar Pictures Script: Brandon Boyce Based on the book by: Stephen King Music: John Ottman Running time: 111 minutes Tags: basketball; Drama; high schools; holocaust; murder; Nazis; novel adaptation; suicide; Thriller Tactical strength: [6/10]
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for scenes of strong violence, language and brief sexuality
High school senior Todd Bowden (Brad Renfro) studies the holocaust for a week in his history class. His teacher makes several suggestions for further study on the matter, and Todd goes to the local library and reads about Nazi Germany for hours. One day on a city bus, Todd sees an old man, Otto Denker (Ian McKellen). Todd suspects Otto has changed his identity from Kurt Dussander, a wanted war criminal, and off screen, Todd collects Otto's fingerprints from his mailbox to confirm that indeed, Otto and Kurt have the same fingerprints.
Todd visits Otto, and threatens to turn him over to authorities unless Otto tells Todd stories about Nazi Germany. Otto tells story after story and answers all Todd's questions about the details of watching prisoners die in the gas chamber. We watch Todd change from a straight A student into a boy obsessed with his power over Otto. In a way, Todd and Otto develop a friendship, and Todd brings his mid-semester failure notices to Otto, who helps Todd forge his parents' signature on the notes. To Todd's surprise, his counselor Mr. French (David Schwimmer) calls Todd to the guidance office, and Todd finds Otto there posing as Todd's grandfather. Otto gets Todd off the hook, but Otto uses the situation as counterleverage against Todd. Now that they each have leverage against each other, the visits cease, and Todd resumes a somewhat normal life. Todd works through the semester and pulls off all A's, and he resumes his life with his high-school friends.
Up through these first two acts, the film works very well. We see clear demonstrations of how power over another individual can lead to abuses as Todd forces Otto to recount stories from his Nazi past. To protect himself, Otto turns the tables on Todd, and we see the mutual distrust that must come from relationships based on lies or leverage. We start to have just a small sense of what it must have been like to have to live with the constant threat of having secrets about yourself discovered and constantly looking over your shoulder to see if someone has followed you. And not surprisingly, we see that Todd incorrectly places his hatred on Otto instead of blaming himself for forcing himself on Otto in the first place.
But then Apt Pupil tries to really deliver an extraordinary moral lesson with the third act and fails miserably. The movie tries to show that the net of lies and influence never goes away. No matter how far behind you try to leave the lies in the past, the past can still come up from behind to bit you right in the butt. I think Apt Pupil tries to make a valid point but executes the delivery of this message poorly. A big part of the failure lies with David Schwimmer, who does manage to portray a slightly different character than Ross from Friends, but he doesn't manage to portray much emotion at all. Maybe Singer directed Schwimmer to act like a nerdy guidance counselor, but even 16-year-old Renfro give a better, more convincing performance the Schwimmer.
One subtext that we can read into Apt Pupil argues that we should hide the details of the holocaust from immediate view, that we should acknowledge that it happened but not discuss the elaborate mechanisms that the Germans used to perpetuate their plans. Apt Pupil argues that by hearing the stories about the holocaust, Todd's behavior changed to mimic the traits of the oppressors. Video game detractors make the same argument, that viewing violence produces violent behavior. This type of thinking removes the responsibility for actions from the individual and places the blame on the material itself. The stories don't corrupt Todd. Instead, he had already crossed a moral line when he decided to use his knowledge for personal benefit, rather than immediately taking his research to the proper authorities.
Ian McKellen, amazing in any role, takes on the persona of Otto Denker with ease as he does with any role from Richard III to Gandalf the Grey to Magneto in the X-Men series. Brad Renfro seems to benefit from working with McKellen and does well at representing a youth curious about forbidden information that then must deal with the responsibility of the knowledge he has gained through illicit means. These two performances provide the life force in Apt Pupil, but even with such good efforts, the final act leaves us wanting more.
