To Kill a Mockingbird: a near perfect film

The 'maniac': Boo Radley

 By Ollie

Yesterday (Tuesday, yes, I know, a strange day for a film night), Rosie and I met and looked around her NEW HOUSE (it's so sad we're leaving our current premises, this weekend we are having a Farewell Film Night for the house which we will post about sometime after) and afterwards sat down to watch a good old film. Yes, old, Rosie did actually allow it. It was the 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee's novel, 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. I'd heard great things about this film and wanted to see it for a long time, so at long last, I rented it from Lovefilm. It also fits in well with our current history topic of American civil rights so I think this was one reason why Rosie allowed us to watch an older film.

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and like my title suggests, it was almost a perfect film. Even Rosie liked it. It dealt with issues such as racism, discrimination, innocence, fear, and exposure to limelight, and dealt with each issue very well. The cast are great, even the child actors are quite good as usually child actors from the 60s are as annoying as tinnitus, and the film produces loveable heroes such as Boo, Tommy and Atticus and villains such as the rape 'victim' and her husband. Surprisingly scary for a 1962 drama film, the film would've benefited with being 10 minutes shorter. The first 50 minutes, which seem irrelevant to the plot until the final few minutes of the film, do go on a little too long, and I'd rather the extremely engaging courtroom scenes to have been longer than these sequences.

Overall, the film, which is emotional, evocative and has wonderful characters, is near perfect for the above reasons. It is one of the best black and white films I have ever seen and I would recommend it to anyone who has a heart.

Overall verdict: 9/10