We continue our little jaunt through the spookiest of months by watching a film adaptation of a story by the spookiest of writers, Stephen King. The film in question is the Netflix release, Mr. Harrigan’s Phone (2022), based on King’s novella of the same name which was released in 2020 in a collection of other previously unreleased novellas named If it Bleeds. The story follows Craig (Jaeden Martell) who as a young boy is recruited by the local, billionaire, recluse, Mr. Harrigan (Donald Sutherland) to read to him several times a week. This arrangement continues for several years and the two strike up an unlikely friendship, with Craig going so far as to gift Mr. Harrigan with a smartphone so they can communicate more effectively. However, when Mr. Harrigan passes away the communication between the two continues as Craig continues to receive texts and calls from Mr. Harrigan’s phone.
Sitting down to write this review I am struggling to decide on exactly how to structure it, which in many ways matches how the film plays out so I’m actually being quite meta in a way. But in all seriousness, I think a lot of this film is a mess of ideas and themes which don’t come together well, and so I will start with my definitive positives from the film. First of all, I enjoyed the two lead performances. Jaeden Martell puts in another strong performance as he has in all the previous films, I have seen him in also. It isn’t a performance to write home about, but he does well. Donald Sutherland, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the outstanding aspect of the film. He isn’t incredible and you wouldn’t be putting this film up there with his greatest performances, but he does have a gravitas that keeps you hooked when he is on screen. The film is at its most interesting in the first half when it is these two playing off each other. Technically the film is very Netflix. By that I mean it is slick and is shot and edited well enough, but it isn’t exactly exciting in any technical department, looking and feeling more like an extended TV show than a feature film. Perhaps if the film had been more visually interesting it wouldn’t have felt so dull.
The film just isn’t that interesting despite it very much trying to be. The film at the same time feels like it complicates its simple ideas, and then at other times, it bashes you around the head with its themes to a point where it is comedic. The main theme in the film where this is clear as day is in the film’s view on mobile phones. Because guess what guys, everyone is obsessed with their phones now, and with constant access to the internet people don’t live in the real world, and loneliness, and fake news, and blah, blah, blah. The film does try to do this in a visual way by having characters on their phones a lot, especially in the high school setting. It even goes so far as to have Craig and his love interest never have an actual conversation, communicating only in smiles or through text. That is a decent if not complex way of getting an idea across without throwing it in your face. But then the film also feels the need to have Mr. Harrigan have a monologue where he effectively says exactly what I wrote earlier about how phones are ‘bad’. And this is symptomatic of the film’s biggest issue, its inability to show not tell. One of the film’s major narrative devices is a narrator, a common sight in films based on books and also a narrative device that I don’t have much time for. That is because film is a visual medium and so, although dialogue is an important aspect of filmmaking, films should focus their storytelling through their visuals. Narration allows films to avoid this and, as is the case with this film, you lose a lot of what film is great at because the visuals play so little importance, and in this film, you could tell so much of the story with just visuals so it feels extra pointless. Another big issue the film has is that is a horror film that is not in the slightest bit scary or even eerie, which I guess might be the actual biggest problem with the film.
Although there is nothing about this film that I would describe as terrible, there is also nothing it offers that would mean I would ever recommend it. It is far too dull for that and has nothing visually or thematically intriguing where you can look past that. Not the most exciting way to kick off the spookiest of months, especially as there is nothing particularly spooky about this film. Hopefully, we get a few more scares from here.
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