This is the second film adaptation of George Orwell's classic satire on the Russian Revolution. For those of you who slept through grade school, the story tells how the animals of the Manor Farm throw out their human oppressors, rename their home Animal Farm, and try to create a new society where they will live equally and prosperously without exploitation. Instead, everything rapidly goes wrong.
Unfortunately, this film does not adequately convey the warning message of Orwell's superb novel. In the book, the corruption of the animals' revolution is subtle. Until the very end, they do not understand what is happening to them, so they are powerless to resist. In the movie, the pigs are far more open about their power seizure, and the other animals far more aware of what is happening, and thus the lack of resistance to the pigs is hard to excuse. The movie says from the start exactly who the villains are going to be, so the viewer is not allowed to share the animals' initial view of Napoleon and Snowball as heroes, or their reluctance to believe that their heroes are betraying them.
The most startling departure from the book is Jessie the dog's new role as narrator. Orwell views much of his story through the eyes of Clover the mare, and he clearly sympathizes most with the pessimism of Benjamin the donkey. In this movie, Benjamin's role is greatly diminished and Clover is nearly eliminated to clear the set for Jessie. Jessie is a triumph of Jim Henson's Creature Shop, a beautiful, lifelike creation, superbly voiced by Julia Ormond, and she could have become the basis for a bold new interpretation of Orwell's story. Unfortunately, Jessie's narration is confusing; she delivers it entirely in retrospective, and it is hard to tell what she knew at the time and what she realized later. She ends up giving the impression that she saw the revolution being betrayed from the outset, and leaves us wondering why she didn't do anything about it. The dramatic potential of Jessie's feelings toward her puppies as they are corrupted into NKVD-like bully boys is unmined; after Napoleon denies her the right to see her offspring, she never mentions them again.
Director Stephenson often forgets that this is the animals' story. He gives the humans much more camera time than they deserve. Orwell's first chapter, a masterpiece of economy, is bloated into about fifteen minutes of screen time by the irrelevant doings of the humans. Stephenson also wastes precious time on Farmer Frederick, who should have been written out of the script the minute the decision was made to exclude Frederick's attack on Animal Farm.
Aside from the endearing Jessie, the film gets its greatest boost from Ian Holm's rendition of Squealer. Squealer here is so sinister that he often eclipses Napoleon. The creature design is good, but it is Holm's silky, menacing voice that really makes the character.
The ending of the movie ultimately sinks it. Neither this film, nor its 1950s predecessor, has the courage to stick with Orwell's spiritually crushing conclusion. The earlier animated version merely repeated the revolution, with no explanation of how the same fatal course will be avoided. This version is even worse, simply destroying Napoleon's reign by a deus ex machina device. Orwell's supreme contribution to the world was his power to face unpleasant facts - a power that this movie lacks.
Rating: ** out of ****.
Recommendation: Don't hesitate to miss it.
