Straw Dogs

I was able to watch a preview screening of the new Straw Dogs last night. It's been a year or two since I saw the original movie. The two movies follow pretty much the same plot and elements. In fact, the new version says it's based on the previous movie and not the original book. I am comparing the current film with my remembrance of the last time I saw the original, so my memory may be a bit flawed.


The new version is set in the U.S. South. The couple at the center, David and Amy (played by James Marsden and Kate Bosworth), have just returned to her hometown from the East, where he wants to work on his book about Russians in warfare and she hopes to renovate her family home. They hire her ex-boyfriend Charlie (Alexander Sarsgard) and other locals to re-roof the barn. But David soon feels put upon and out of place as he doesn't fit in well and the men have minor clashes and they are passive aggressive to each other. Amy also waffles from supporting her husband to being angered by his sometimes domineering attitude toward her.

Several instances suggest Charlie and his friends are terrorizing the couple. David tries to give them the benefit of the doubt but Any only sees he is a coward. Added into the mix is a mentally disabled man with a fondness for young girls, whom the couple shelter in their home after an incident with a girl. The men of the town, including the girl's father (James Woods), torment the couple and force them to barricade themselves in their home in a big showdown of wills.
I think the new movie is less suspenseful in several ways and not as morally ambiguous for the husband character which was played by Dustin Hoffman in the original. I think, looking at it in hindsight, Hoffman's persona as a nebbishy nervous guy who is university educated plays off much more of a difference against the closed and foreign-to-him society of the English town his wife comes from. In the newer film, James Marsden is a little too attractive and confident for this role, and being a modern day story, conflicts with rednecks are not a new thing because of pop culture references and the smaller world we come from.
The new film seems a little more dumbed down. In the original, an English town and their way of doing things was more foreign to American audiences so we had little frame of reference, and so the tension comes from OUR not knowing as well as Hoffman's. In the new one, the film does lazy things like having the David wear glasses, play chess and listen to classical music, as opposed to the rednecks who drink full calorie beer (instead of lite beer like David), hunt, and listen to country rock, stereotyping too much both types of characters for us.
David’s turnaround from victim to vigilante also is not as realistically come by or the film doesn't work hard enough on this. Of course it is shocking because first we see David as meek but then turning to violence in an extreme way, but the "snapped" quality of his mind was not portrayed well for me. The writing of this character seems to separate these two aspects and doesn't show us enough during the victim phase so that when he becomes vigilante he comes off more like he is defending himself and fighting back, and not going bat crazy.
The character of Amy in the old version of the film I think was also more effective. I read that Hoffman had complained that Susan George was not the right actress as he didn't believe his character would marry a "Lolita" character like her. But for the film it works as she is a little more sexualized due to the age difference and still in a way naive about her sexuality. In the new film, Amy is fully aware of her sexuality to both David and the other men. There is less of a provincial attitude on the David’s part in the new film as he and Amy are considered equals; when he puts his foot down on certain matters and she refuses, this depiction is not strong enough to support David’s attitude in thinking that Amy should “obey” him. In the original, the age difference was more effective at showing this believably.
A big part of the tension comes from sex. Charlie of course is the muscled ex-boyfriend who is supposed to contrast against the mild and bookish David. There is a rape scene which in the old version was pared down to not show how Amy ended up "enjoying" it, so in an uncut version her character becomes more ambiguous too. In the new film it did not have that element so again it loses some effectiveness.
In the original we did not know what the characters would be doing next, due much to the fact that back then films did not show a lot of violence by ordinary people. In the new one, we are so used to horror films and action films nowadays that the last act with the showdown had less tension for me. I am just comparing it with my remembrance from the last time I saw the original, so my memory may be a bit flawed.

James Woods plays the father of the girl who has a run-in with the town's mentally disabled man. He is a little over the top. Also he gets hit in the face by two pots of hot oil but still able to talk and stuff so that was pretty unrealistic.

There are bits where we see Charlie have a bit of morality showing through his vile actions but we know very little of his backstory, so for a pretty major character we have little to base his actions and thinking on. I think his character could have been explored more in the remake.

The new film also didn't take advantage of using another element--the sherriff is a black man. Being a story set in the South, the film could have also talked about latent racism. Perhaps something about affirmative action, or he got the job over a white man. Or more about how the sherriff is an ex-soldier whereas the rednecks have no ambition (this is lightly mentioned but more could have been explored). Another layer would have been to make the mentally disabled man a black guy, but perhaps that would have been drawing away too much from the central story.
There is also a point where David plays Zydeco music on the record player but I thought classical would have been a stronger plot device at that junction in the story. The film mentions he plays Beethoven and I think something loud like the Fifth Symphony--which I learned from another film set in the South, Conrack, is about death knocking at your door--played loud and booming would have supported David's actions.
Overall I think the movie is a lesser copy of the original. It only changed its setting and again, the story didn’t take advantage of the change of scene to add new layers to the story or make it something specific to its location.