A Fine Classic Whose Meaning Goes Well Beyond the Story Itself

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2005)

A fine adaptation of a fine novel, "To Kill A Mockingbird" not only brings the story and its characters to life, but also creates a world whose meaning and significance go well beyond the story itself. Gregory Peck gives what might be his finest - and what almost certainly is his best-remembered - performance, yet he is only one of several strong points of the movie.
It's understood that the movie version is going to be somewhat different from the book, yet this adaptation is very well-conceived in its selections from the novel and in achieving what it sets out to do. It concentrates on the Tom Robinson case and on the children's exploration of their neighborhood, and it meshes these story-lines together nicely.
The main themes of justice, acceptance, and related ideas are obviously of great importance, and yet what helps this movie to stand out from so many others that promote the same values is that it does not stop at simply re-affirming right and wrong, but puts these and other issues into a framework, a way of looking at the world.
Almost the whole movie is viewed from the world of the children, and it is not the over-simplified or stereotyped world of most children's stories, but rather a world where so many things seem so much larger and so much more mysterious than they seem to adults. The true mystery and curiosity of a child's world is hard to capture either in print or on film, but from the very beginning "To Kill a Mockingbird" effectively helps its viewers to look at things from that kind of a perspective.
Peck's performance works very well, especially with this in mind. Most of the time, he allows the issues to speak for themselves, not indulging in theatrics or emotion, even to make the most important of points. For this reason, on those few occasions when he does become more vehement, those moments are that much more effective. The child actors, especially Mary Badham, are a perfect complement to Peck, and Robert Duvall's brief appearance fits in wonderfully.
Both the original book and this movie version are quite worthwhile, and there's no reason to have to choose between the two. Both of them succeed admirably in their own sphere, and both add their own dimensions to the story, the characters, and the world that they live in.