It's all about Scout

Rating: 10/10 (1 September 2012)

I think too much can be made of the civil rights issues in this film. They are brilliantly rendered, as so in the book. They point to an attitude our parents held that was abhorrent. As a significant plot feature, its give the book an all too apparent thesis. Too much can be made of Boo... too.
Reading the book and seeing the film, nothing that happens is significant except in as much as it is something that Scout addresses AND the brilliance of the book and the movie is the structure allows us to witness her witness it all, both as a child and as a nostalgic adult concurrently.
It is impossible to not love Scout. Her embodiment in Mary Badham is extraordinary. It is fun to view some of the documentaries about the film. Mary was every bit the tough tomboy that Scout was. The jewel of the film is witnessing Atticus turn her, and Jem, into loving and moral adults.. by himself and according to his own convictions. When Scout curls up in her daddy lap.... a daddy like me feels all of that love of and for a child once again. One scene.. the one about the watch is just lovely.
I won't discuss the movie making other than to say it so speaks of the era in every detail and of a time that, apart from the wretched treatment of our black brothers, must have been a great time to live.