Attentive viewers noted that Tim Burton's adaptation of Sweeney Todd was advertised as though it wasn't that truly frightening thing, a musical. (This despite the fact that it's practically an opera.) But this evening, I spied something equally creative: a TV promo for Doubt that makes it look as though it is...a light Christmas comedy. You know--Christmas trees, lighthearted voiceover, peppy music, snippets of mildly snarky dialogue. To anyone who has never heard of Doubt, let me just say: it is not a light Christmas comedy.
Really.
Very not.
We had a similar experience with another Philip Seymour Hoffman film, The Savages, which was advertised as a dark comedy -- so not comedic, so depressing.
Posted by: What Now? | December 18, 2008 at 11:28 AM
I just read the play by John Patrick Shanley, and I doubt (no pun intended) that he has changed the movie that much (after all, he also directed.) But nervous corporate executives might think that such issues can't be taken seriously by audiences, so they try to entice us by making the story seem "lighter." Too bad.
Posted by: John Thomas McGuire | December 20, 2008 at 09:38 AM