[KING'S CORNER] Apt Pupil (1998)
- Joseph
- Apr 7
- 7 min read
Apt Pupil - King's Corner Review
Welcome to King's Corner. A recurring series of reviews based on the film and TV adaptations of Stephen King's novels and collections, reviewed and released in order of the original source material publishing date.
Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Ian McKellen, Brad Renfro, Joshua Jackson, Ann Dowd, Bruce Davison
Written by: Brandon Boyce
Produced by: Jane Hamsher, Don Murphy, Bryan Singer
Cinematography by: Newton Thomas Sigel
Original Score by: John Ottman
Synopsis:
A boy blackmails his neighbor after suspecting him to be a Nazi war criminal.
Thoughts:
We live in an age where you can access a multitude of information at the click of a button thanks to the internet. At face value this might seem like a blessing but it is also a curse. Young people (especially young men) at an impressionable age are at the whim of the worst aspects of this as algorithms target them with negative and false information in short contextless or false bursts. They are given history lessons through Tik Tok or Instagram Reels with no real way to verify the source of the information. Their curiosity in a subject leads them to blindly accepting what they are presented as fact. One such trend at the minute comes in the form of how a lot of right wing content (especially around the history of the Nazis) has been pushed forward without proper moderation in the name of "presenting both sides of an argument". This supposed centrist slant leads people down a dark road of Holocaust denial and other similar vile subjects that goes beyond edgelord territory and into more sinister. When reading through his novella 'Apt Pupil', you can't help to think that Stephen King was ahead of his time in writing it.
The second story in the 'Different Seasons' novella collection, King first wrote the story in two weeks after completing 'The Shining' (with several fan theories that suggest that Jack was writing this story in that book). Set in the 1970's the story follows the "all American boy" Todd Bowden, who discovers that his elderly neighbour, Arthur Denker is the notorious Nazi war criminal Kurt Dussander who was a commandant at a concentration camp. He blackmails him into sharing his experiences of the Holocaust but it awakens a darkness that has laid dormant leading to terrible consequences.
Subtitled "The Summer of Corruption" the story almost wasn't a part of the collection as his publishers at New American Library felt it was too dark. In the book 'Stephen King: The Art of Darkness' King told writer Douglas E. Winter about it. He said, "They were very disturbed by the piece. Extremely disturbed. It was too real. If the same story had been set in outer space, it would have been okay, because then you would have had that comforting layer of 'Well, this is just make-believe, so we can dismiss it.' King wrote the story as a way of trying to make sense of how death camps came to be under the Nazi regime. In an interview with Janet C. Beaulieu for the Bangor Daily News in November 1988 he said, "I don't understand what happened over there. I don't have the slightest idea what got into those people...it makes that whole concept of some sort of outside evil, like the spore that floats through the air that you inhale, seem really...attractive."
Prior to the film's release in 1998 there were several attempts to bring the film to the big screen. The first came when producers Richard Kobritz and William Frye wanted to make the film with James Mason in the lead. Their aim was to make a low budget Indie adaptation of the story but Mason died in July 1984 while they were acquiring the rights to the novella. They approached Richard Burton to replace him but he also died a month later. It wasn't until 1987 that production began with British director Alan Bridges at the helm with Nicol Williamson cast as Dussander and Rick Schroder cast as Bowden. The film shut down after a few weeks filming as the production ran out of money and by the time they acquired more money Schroder aged out of the role effectively ending the production. In 1995 Bryan Singer approached King with a first draft script of the novella (written by Brandon Boyce) and a copy of his (then unreleased) film 'The Usual Suspects'. Impressed with Singer, King optioned the rights to the director for $1, arranging to be compensated when the film was released with a percentage of the future profits.
The "cursed" nature of the film doesn't end there though as there were allegations of sexual misconduct made against Bryan Singer during the making of the film. They revolve around the infamous shower scene in school where Todd imagines Holocaust victims next to him as if he was in a gas chamber. There were at least five allegations from underage extras between the ages of 14 and 17, who claimed that members of the crew had bullied them into stripping naked for the shower scene. The most notorious account came from Victor Valdovinos (in an article from The Atlantic in March 2019) who was 13 at the time of the making of the film. He alleges that Singer groped his genitals after casting him as an extra in the movie. With knowledge of these allegations it casts the film in a completely different light.
You may view the relationship between Todd (Brad Renfro) and Dussander (Ian McKellen) as being paternal in nature, as Dussander nurtures Todd's extremely morbid curiosity, teaching him all the wrong lessons from history and allowing him to develop into a monster. Watching the film with the knowledge of these allegations, the film is recontextualised as the elements of homoeroticism and sadomasochism that were there (and feature in the novella) feel more sinister and almost like a twisted fantasy in the manner in which they are presented in the film. The way the characters are framed in their conversations with each other and the almost seductive way they speak to each other is done in such a stomach churning manner that I can never possibly recommend that anyone should watch this film.
In taking the film on its own terms, it isn't structured very well. The main problem stems from how accelerated Todd's relationship with Dussander is. It feels that in one scene he is telling him all about how he figured out who he really was in such an elaborate (and almost unbelievable) manner that by the time the next scene starts, Dussander is happily regaling his experiences as a commandant of a concentration camp. It almost trivialises the subject matter that they discuss in a manner that nullifies the impact it should have as Singer's focus seems to be more on the relationship rather than the conversation. This is compounded by John Ottman's score which snuffs out any sense of weight in the film giving it a gothic horror feel that goes against the grain of the story. The only thing that keeps the film somewhat interesting are the two lead performances.
As Todd Bowden, Brad Renfro does a fine job as the perfect everyday American boy who has a dark side he keeps to himself. He never seems conflicted about his nature as he seeks out ways to indulge it by manipulating those around him. Be it his parents Richard and Monica (played by Bruce Davison and Ann Dowd respectively) or his guidance counsellor Edward French (David Schwimmer) he is a highly manipulative individual who is getting worse by the day. His best friend Joey (Joshua Jackson) can see that there is something wrong with him but they never get to the bottom of it. This ambivalence towards him almost gives him free reign to pursue his morbid fixation. Renfro constantly has a dead look in his eyes and his relationship with Dussander serves to strip away any semblance of humanity one story at a time.
It is no surprise that lan McKellen is the highlight of the film. He is a monster laying dormant having committed countless heinous war crimes, yet in slipping into his alter ego of Arthur Denker he comes across as nothing more than a lonely frail old man. His relationship with Todd awakens this monster inside him (after much blackmail) and this is all too prevalent in the scene where he tries on the SS costume. There is a strange sadomasochism to it as the power dynamics between the two shift and change ultimately leading to Todd losing control over Dussander. What stands out in McKellen's performance is his ability to charm and manipulate people with the most simple of changes to his expression. With a simple look he can switch from being a charming old man to a chilling creature that is without any sense of remorse.
Ultimately from a film point of view, the biggest mistake was the changing of the ending. In both the novella and the film, Dussander commits suicide in order to evade being detained for the discovery of his past. Todd's fate is quite different though. In both cases he is confronted by his school counsellor Edward French but the resolution of this confrontation is different. In the novella, Todd kills French, snapping his last strand of sanity leading to him embarking on a shooting spree that results in his own death. In the film though, he blackmails French into keeping silent or he would accuse him of sexual assault. Whilst this may appear darker knowing how Todd can grow up to continue a similar path to Dussander, knowing how he can get away with it all, it feels too clean and consequence free outside of the implications. It ultimately lacks the comeuppance the character receives and deserves in the novella. Actions have consequences in the novella while they don't in the film.
'Apt Pupil' is a very dark and bleak story that serves as a warning to learn the right lessons from history or risk having similar consequences for the future. With the rise in white supremacy and moves towards the right in the world through the wrong types of influences on young men online, it is quite frightening to know that there are probably several people like Todd Bowden in the world. It's certainly a story ripe for another adaptation given the current political climate but given the legacy of the horrific allegations surrounding Singer's films it is probably best to be left alone in its current mediocre state.
Verdict: ⭐️⭐️
-Joseph McElroy
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