Review: A Bridge to Terabithia

First posted: February 26, 2007

Last night we went to see A Bridge to Terabithia, a coming-of-age story about the uses of fantasy. A reviewer in Entertainment Weekly referred to it as "…a movie that never decides if it is a fantasy or a coming-of-age story..." The reviewer must not have used fantasy to escape the drudgery of childhood. More than escape, these children used fantasy to practice overcoming their problems. One tells the other, what is one eighth-grade bully compared to the Dark Lord?

Reviewers complained that the fantasy was not fully realized. I suppose they are comparing it to The Chronicles of Narnia which is also about children creating a joint fantasy or the Harry Potter series which are an adult fantasy about childhood or The Lord of the Rings which can best be described as self-indulgent. Narnia is a fully realized fantasy world. But in The Chronicles of Narnia little is made of the aftermath. What effect did it have on the children after they left Narnia to return to the bleak world of wartime England? We don't know how the children put what ever they may have learned in Narnia to use in their lives, how it aided their coming of age. Did they carry the ideas of sacrifice and redemption into the problems that they faced? We don't know.

If you could take a survey of the books most read under the bed covers at night, Harry Potter might win. Children stood in long lines and cajoled their parents into waiting at the bookstore until midnight when the Harry Potter books could be sold. Why? Because if you strip off the magical elements, the quidditch, the flying broomsticks, the messenger owls, Harry Potter is about children facing the same monsters that real children face. J. K. Rawlings is speaking to them across the great abyss from adulthood about solving the problems of growing up. This is a good thing. Adults should try to guide children through the minefield.

But C. S. Lewis and J. K. Rowling have created adult, completely developed fantasy worlds for children to play in and learn what they can.

In A Bridge to Terabithia, the children use their fantasy conquest of the dark lord to build their self esteem enough to tackle their real life adversaries. They turn the tables on a conventional school yard bully, only to find that she is not just a cardboard villain but a full-fleshed human, with problems of her own. As Leslie says, with more than childish understanding, that explains a lot about her. Ultimately, she is enlisted on their side in the real – not fantasy – playground wars.

As a former teacher, I can tell you that the fantasy worlds that children create for themselves are not as rich in detail as Narnia or Hogwarts. That does not mean that they are not as "real." It takes time for a fantasy to be fleshed out, years more than children have. The beauty of the Terabithia is that we can as adults look back at the fantasy worlds we created. So I'm not Tolkein or Rowling or Lewis. My childhood fantasy world had as much validity as theirs.

For some reason, conventional wisdom is that childhood is the "best years of our lives." Perhaps for a golden few they were. But for some of us they were the worst. I wouldn't go back to that age for anything in the world. But I am glad I had fantasy to escape it. I am glad that my daughter and grandson had and have A Bridge to Terabithia. I hope they learned from it.