Days Of Swine And Roses
Charlotte’s Web Captures Timeless Appeal Of Book

As a kid I liked books better when the animals in them resembled the animals I knew from real life. I enjoyed Jack London’s The Call of the Wild and White Fang because his dogs and wolves acted like dogs and wolves. They didn’t wear clothes, they didn’t walk upright, and they sure as heck didn’t speak English.

“I’ll write this protest letter for you, Wilbur, but I really don’t think the NFL will switch to Nerf footballs.” Dakota Fanning stars as Fern Arable in the new movie Charlotte’s Web.

The only two notable exceptions to my very un-kid-like rule were Beverly Cleary’s The Mouse and the Motorcycle series and E.B. White’s classic children’s novel Charlotte’s Web. In both, the animals were allowed to take on a few human qualities without losing their essential animal-ness.

Charlotte’s Web, in particular, retains its magic because the animals in the Arable’s barn never talk to humans, only to themselves. It’s as if we’re eavesdropping on their world rather than turning them into four-legged people.

Paramount Picture’s new film version of Charlotte’s Web is so faithful to E.B. White’s original story that it might appeal more to adults who grew up with the book than to 21st children weaned on a steady diet of Broadway-style Disney features with their big song and dance numbers and modern computer generated animation films with their frenetic action sequences.

Charlotte’s Web is simpler, quieter and more direct than most children’s films and as such ought to be celebrated by everyone who loves good movies and quality children’s literature. Of course, it helps that the original story was so timeless to begin with and the setting is the relatively timeless region of rural Maine.

Charlotte’s Web uses real actors and animals deftly combined with computer-generated ones (generally the smaller ones such as Templeton the rat and Charlotte the spider). The combination is seamless and helps the overall effect of animals interacting with one another.

The story involves a young farm girl, Fern Arable (Dakota Fanning), who saves the runt piglet of a spring litter from her daddy’s ax. She names the pig Wilbur and when he gets too big for the family’s house moves him across the street to her uncle’s barn. There Wilbur meets an assortment of farm animals and a wise little spider named Charlotte (voiced by Julia Roberts). As the year wears on and Wilbur approaches the pig-slaughtering season, Charlotte and the others devise a plan for saving Wilbur’s bacon from the smokehouse.

If Charlotte’s Web shares any trait with modern animated movies, it is that the directors and producers felt it necessary to supply every single character with the voice of a celebrity. It is a ploy that amuses many film fans yet distracts the rest of us from the movie magic supposedly taking place on the silver screen. While Roberts, Steve Buscemi (Templeton), John Cleese (Samuel the Sheep), Thomas Haden Church (Brooks the Crow) and Andre Benjamin (Elwyn the Crow), do an admirable job with their respective characters, there were times when you could almost see the individual actors working in the recording studio—reading glasses on their nose, script and microphone in front of their face. The effect worked better when the voices were more generic and therefore anonymous, such as Oprah Winfrey as Gussy the Goose, Robert Redford as Ike the Horse, and an un-credited Dominic Scott Kay as Wilbur.

If the makers of Charlotte’s Web stumbled somewhat with the celebrity voices, they more than make up for that misstep by following White’s book to perfection. The pacing is exquisite, the movie is neither too long nor too short, and there are only a couple of scenes in it that I could not positively remember from the original story.

Best of all, the movie has a heart and personality that creep up on you. Midway through the film when little is happening it seems as if Wilbur is indeed a pretty ordinary pig…and that’s the point. Charlotte is not trying to save him because he is “some pig” or “terrific” but because he is her friend and she loves him.

Without spoiling the ending for anyone who has not seen the movie or read the book (Where have you been?), you will be moved to tears by the time Charlotte has her babies.

Although I still think Roberts is one of the most overrated actresses in history, she does a remarkable job of creating an emotional bond between the audience and Charlotte simply by using her motherly voice. And this is no cuddly-looking animated spider, mind you. If you suffer from arachnophobia you might have a bit of trouble warming up to this ultra-realistic-looking movie character.

Roberts and Fanning create an emotional center to the story without drawing undo attention to themselves, something I’m not sure many actresses these days could accomplish. They let Wilbur and Templeton get all the laughs and attention while these actresses quietly steal your heart.

In conclusion, it is the wonderful celebration of ordinariness that separated E.B. White’s book from others when it was first published in 1952. It is that same celebration that separates this film from the loud and flashy children’s movies that fill parents’ DVD shelves half a century later.

Charlotte’s Web is rated G and is currently playing at Regal Cinemas in Boone.