Bridge to Terabithia: A Review

Spending my week on the beach last week with family, I logged many hours with my 2 and 6-year old nieces. I’m thinking now of one particular afternoon with the 2-year old, an afternoon full of adventure. We ventured to Neverland, only to find ourselves then swimming with mermaids under the sea. From one adventure to the next, for her the swimming pool and the kiddie pool next to it were constantly in a state of transformation, changing from one imaginary universe to the next. What a treat to glimpse at the world through her eyes, seeing the sparks of imagination fly as we played our games, sang our songs, and enjoyed the afternoon sun.

It was with this experience in mind that I watched Bridge to Terabithia, the adaptation of the popular children’s novel. In Terabithia, we meet Jesse, a misfit kid struggling to make life work in elementary school. His family lives outside of town, so he’s labeled a “country kid” in a city school. They’re struggling to make ends meet, and so he has to make do at times with hand-me-downs from his sisters, including the childhood horror of having to wear his sister’s sneakers with pink stripes. Fighting to fit in, we join him at the beginning on a morning run, as we see him striving to make his mark by being the fastest boy in the class. When recess comes, he sets out to prove himself, and does, beating out the competition that includes one of the class bullies. His joy is short-lived, though, as the winner of the race is Leslie, the new girl that showed up in class that morning.

Already frustrated at being beaten, and by a girl no less, he is further horrified when Leslie gets off at his bus stop, revealing that she has moved into the house next door to him. We see them struggle through the awkwardness of childhood, but in a fairly short time they begin to forge a real friendship, a friendship that is bound up in Leslie’s imagination. They venture into the woods, and there begin a time of wonderful childhood discovery.

Leslie looks upon the woods as an invitation to dream. They find a rope that crosses a stream and, ignoring the dangers, Leslie swings across and enters into a world of her own creation. She slowly draws Jesse into this world, and together they create Terabithia, an imaginary place full of mystical creatures. It is a world full of good and evil, and a place where they are constantly discovering their own magical powers as they fight for good and deepen their discovery.

As they grow in their discovery of Terabithia, their friendship also deepens. Leslie encourages Jesse to explore his talent as an artist, a gift he is embarrassed to share with others, feeling the glare of disapproval that he gets from his older sisters and especially his cool and practical father. His dad doesn’t have much place in his life for any of the wonder that Jesse is discovering through his friendship with Leslie, a sense that is a necessary component of his life as an artist. Through her he even gets the strength to speak to his music teacher, his secret crush who becomes for him a vital mentor that further sparks his imagination.

The movie at times seems to meander without purpose, but I think that even that itself is intentional. Childhood itself meanders, as the movement between the real world and the world of imagination is constantly in motion. For those, like me, who haven’t experienced the novel, we are left to wonder where we are heading with the plot, knowing only that the friendship is strengthening as they share their lives together.

Even while it moves through these quiet days, the movie gives us a number of precious images of friendship as we see these two grow up. He shares in her family’s experience in painting a room, and she goes with him to church, inviting their shared reflection on faith. This interaction was awkward but genuine, as we see children try to make sense of the mysteries of faith while still deeply entwined in the stories of their families of origin and the limitations that childhood necessarily imposes. Their reflections aren’t deep, but they are inviting nonetheless.

In truth, much of my experience of the movie fits that same phrase: awkward but genuine. I think the awkwardness stems from the film’s attempt to have us view the world as much as possible through the eyes of the children. As we see the world through their eyes, we are given a wonderful world of possibilities as the imagination is ignited. But we are also then given a limited vocabulary, as so much of the “adult world” that surrounds them involves new and strange experiences for which they have no language to process. When the movie succeeds, it does so by having us experience the same limitation of vocabulary while still giving us the experience of wonder that they know.

The movie does take a dramatic turn, and when it does it forces a confrontation between this world of imagination and wonder that Jesse has discovered and the often brutal realities of our world. What can sustain us as we make our own journey? What is left of that childhood sense of wonder?

As I reflect on the movie, I turn back to my time with my nieces over the previous week. There is an adult world that surrounds them. At times, it presses in on them and so they must glimpse realities for which they have no vocabulary and no way to process. Part of their survival will be grounded in their ability to experience the world of wonder that lies alongside those harsher realities. Indeed, that is a survival skill that will be needed even as they move further away from the years where imagination can reign supreme.

Terabithia invites us back to the kinds of worlds that Tolkien and Lewis explored with great depths in the past century. Living amidst the brutalities of our world, they invite us to remember the spiritual gift of wonder, a gift that looks at dying things and sees the life that lies beneath. They connect for us the truth that the gift that lets my niece see Neverland in the middle of the swimming pool is the seed of the gift that will let her look at the pain and hardship of life and see the Hand of God at work. The first may seem the trite wonderings of a child, but the second is indispensable.

May her Neverland never disappear.