Hearts in Atlantis ... and in the Right Place

By Teddy Durgin
There are some movies that seem like dreams. They put you in a trance-like state. They cast a spell, and, magically, you no longer have to fight the outside world. All the cares, the pains, and the struggles of real life are washed away for a couple of hours, and you give yourself over to the story. You fall under its power. In a strange way, the movie is no longer being flashed on the screen in front of you. It's happening ...and it's happening to you.

Hearts in Atlantis (opening in U.S. theaters on Sept. 28) works in this way. In fact, it works EXACTLY in this way. The whole film plays like a dream remembered. Quite possibly the most captivating experience I have had in a movie theater in weeks, director Scott Hicks teams with the late cinematographer Piotr Sobocinski and a terrific cast to give us two hours of pure movie magic.

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Anthony Hopkins stars as Ted Brautigan, a mysterious drifter who rents a room from poor widow Elizabeth Garfield (Hope Davis). Brautigan quickly strikes up a friendship with her son, Bobby (Anton Yelchin, in a performance that is nothing short of a revelation). Bobby has just celebrated his 11th birthday, and the only gift his mother could afford was a library card. Ted takes the boy under his wing, introducing him to great literature and paying him $1 a week to read him the newspaper. The year is 1960, and a buck a week was big money to a boy who dreams only of owning the perfectly polished Schwinn bicycle in the store window in his small Connecticut town.

But Bobby senses there is a catch. Reading Ted comics and sports scores and news headlines is not worth such a wage. What else does this odd old man want from him? Ted admires the boy insight. He tells him that he is on the run from "lowmen in the Dickensian sense," bad guys who wear dark suits and drive flashy cars. They hunt for him by putting up lost puppy posters in towns around the country, alerting their network of undercover evildoers. This was the time of J. Edgar Hoover and Communism. Suspicion ran rampant. And Ted has something the lowmen want.

I enjoyed Hearts in Atlantis on three levels. It is a fantastic coming-of-age story that centers around Bobby and his first love, the angelic Carol Gerber (Mika Boorem). The film's most whimsical sequence takes place at a town carnival in which Ted's tutelage and special powers start to rub off on Bobby and he not only foils a shyster performing card tricks, he also shares with Carol their first kiss-"the kiss by which all others will be measured," Ted tells him. This is one of the most genuinely sweet and unabashedly romantic scenes in recent memory (my preview audience actually let out a collective "Awwwww!"). And it was one of the few perfect movie moments of 2001.

On a second level, the film is a meditation on life and loss. There is a palpable sadness that hangs over much of the story (David Morse bookends the story as the grown-up Bobby, and he is both haunted and inspired by the events we witness in his past), and King and screenwriter William Goldman never shy away from putting their characters in real jeopardy. This is not a cheap, sentimental tear-jerker. The film earns the emotional sympathy of its audience.

On a third level, Hearts in Atlantis is a strange and somewhat twisty mystery. Unless you have read the Stephen King book upon which the movie is based, you're never quite sure who or even what Ted Brautigan is. Is he an angel? A demon? An alien? A superhero? How does he know so much about so many people? How can he recall memories so perfectly? And how is it that he can temporarily pass his powers onto Bobby through touch?

Hopkins is fantastic in the role. At the beginning of the year, we all were looking forward to his long-awaited return to the role of Hannibal Lecter. But it's this smaller, less-heralded film that I believe will stay with movie fans longer. Hopkins' performance puts Ted outside the normal world. A man like this couldn't possibly exist, except in the hands of a great actor. By the end, the audience has both feared Ted Brautigan and loved him.

Hearts in Atlantis brings to mind several great films like Stand By Me, Forrest Gump, and To Kill a Mockingbird. It's very sweet, very romantic, and winningly nostalgic in parts. And it's also confusing, strange, and quite dangerous in other parts. I loved it for all that it is, and all that it can be. And, ultimately, that is the message this film delivers about people.

Hearts in Atlantis is rated PG-13 for violence and thematic elements.