Robert Cormier Movies
- 1999
A teenager tries to find his memory in a hospital for the dying in this inspiring if downbeat drama. Barney Snow (Elijah Wood) is a young man suffering from amnesia; while he's able to summon up a few vague and disconnected memories of his past, most of it is extremely foggy at best, and he's somehow found his way into a hospital for terminally ill young people, where two of the doctors on staff (Janeane Garofalo and Roger Rees) try to work with him when they can spare time from their other patients. Barney gets to know some of the other patients at the clinic, including Billy the Kidney (George Gore III) and Mazzo (Joseph Perrino), who is battling cancer but not winning the fight. Barney also meets Mazzo's sister Cassie (Rachel Leigh Cook), who seems to be developing a crush on him. The Bumblebee Flies Anyway received enthusiastic notices for its younger cast when it was screened at France's Deauville Festival of American Cinema in 1999. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Elijah Wood, Janeane Garofalo, (more)
- 1990
When the teen-aged Canadian student Bruce (Mathew Mackay) discovers an old U.S. passport in some of his family's papers bearing a picture of him as a child -- a passport with an entirely different name -- he is intrigued. When his parents grow extremely nervous during a visit from a man they tell him is "an old friend of the family," he grows concerned and insists that they tell him what's going on. They decide to tell him, and it turns out that his father (John Hurt) was a journalist who testified in an important U.S. Mafia trial, and his family was relocated to Canada as part of a witness relocation program. Later, Bruce decides to write a fictionalized account of his family's saga, using his real birth name as a pen name. His girlfriend, thinking simply that it is a terrific story, steals a copy and submits it in a contest. The story wins the prize, and is published -- all without Bruce's knowledge or consent. When his family finds out that their cover has been blown in this way, they once again relocate to try and avoid their pursuers. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Hurt, Marthe Keller, (more)
The independently produced Chocolate War marked actor Keith Gordon's directorial debut. Adapted from the popular novel by Robert Cormier (I Am the Cheese), it functions as a political allegory set in a curricular context, in the same vein as Rene Daalder's Massacre at Central High (1976). In War, Ilan Mitchell-Smith plays Jerry, a new enrollee at the exclusive Catholic prep school St. Trinity. He attempts to fit in by joining the football team, but immediately runs head-first into Brother Leon (John Glover), a ruthless academician striving for a promotion to headmaster, and The Vigils, a underground student gang that wields a massive amount of power within the school. The abusive Leon attempts to goad as many students as possible into selling chocolates for the school fundraiser, but Vigil leader Archie (Wally Ward) has Jerry publicly refuse to sell any for ten days, as one of the annual 'hazing' rituals that the Vigils dole out to freshman enrollees. Jerry agrees, which turns him into a rebel hero among his fellow students, but he then extends his refusal beyond the week-and-a-half limit imposed by Archie, which puts him head-to-head with both Leon and the Vigils. However, instead of turning into an underdog story at that point, The Chocolate War remains realistic and cynical.
~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Glover, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, (more)
In this interesting drama based on a novel by Robert Cormier, flashbacks to two different periods of time mixed with scenes from the present slowly unveil the mysterious circumstances surrounding a lonely teen (Robert MacNaughton) who meets regularly with a psychiatrist delving into his past. The boy is in an institution and often rides around the grounds on his bicycle, pretending that the guards, groundskeepers, and personnel are his enemies. As the psychiatrist probes deeper, more of the boy's family's past comes to light. His father (Don Murray) had been a successful journalist until he testified in a criminal court case that made him a target of assassins -- and so he faked his death in an accident, changed his name, and moved out to Vermont. He never told his son who he was, and when he and his wife (Hope Lange) are killed one day in an "accident" the boy sees it and goes into shock. Now as he continues in his treatments at the institution, he begins to suspect that his psychiatrist and the institution's staff are, in fact, his father's enemies and orchestrated the assassination of his parents. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert MacNaughton, Hope Lange, (more)
