I Am The Cheese (1983)

I love this movie so much

Expected more

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

First I must admit that I could not sit through the entire film. After only 30 minutes, I realized that none of the characters from the book were in the film, just card board cut-outs. They took a nervous and fearful Adam and made him a smiling and waving awkward kid. Heck, Amy wasn't even a tomboy. They butchered the atmosphere as well, no suspense or sense of foreboding. So I shipped to the end and guess what, they butchered the ending too.Read the book, it has awesome characters and a story that builds and keeps you thinking and an ending worth talking about. As for the movie, shame on everyone involved in its making and shame on you if you watch it after reading this.

This movie gets confusing, but once you make sense of it you will like it even better. That's part of the fun. It was based on the book of the same name, and follows it pretty faithfully. The story involves a kid who is confined to a psychiatric ward. He is apparently having delusions and is confused about what is real and what isn't. (Can anyone say, "A Beautiful Mind?")He has two birth certificates, his parents are dead, and he has to sort thru his memories to decide what is real. Confused yet? It will all make sense at the end when you see it. I will not give anything else away.*** out of ****

The people who made I Am The Cheese disregarded the atmosphere of the original novel. The movie is bright and cheery. The interrogation scenes take place in a well-lit, normal-looking office. The doctor is basically nonthreatening. The drama of Adam's situation is underplayed and subdued, and the movie insults the book by adding an ending that fits the movie's sanitized view of the story. A new version of this film would be really cool, if any studio had the initiative to take on the project. Since the cast is so small and the story requires little in the way of special effects, an independent production could work out very well. Today's audiences would probably react well to a version of I Am The Cheese that stays true to the style of the book -- dark, threatening, and mysterious. It's a shame nobody's bothered to dig up the rights.

I'll admit that this movie, which was based on Robert Cormier's young adult novel, must have been difficult to make. The novel jumped through many time frames and had many scenes which would have been difficult to capture on film. But it simply lacks the subtle horror of the book, and the low budget really shows. Also, why change the ending? The ending of the novel might have been bleaker, but in the movie the ending left many questions unanswered.