Review: The Kite Runner
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Khalid Abdallah, Homayoun Ershadi, Shaun Toub, Atossa Leoni, Saiid Taghmaoui, Zekeria Ebrahimi, Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada. Directed by Marc Forester. Screenplay by David Benioff, based on the novel by Khaled Hosseini. Rated PG-13. 122 minutes. Paramount Vantage.
The much anticipated film version of Khaled Hosseini’s celebrated novel The Kite Runner, the story of two Afghan boys from different worlds divided by a childhood incident which informs the adult life of one for years to follow, arrives on the screen with mixed results.
Directed by Marc Christopher (Monster’s Ball, Finding Neverland), The Kite Runner is strongest in its opening half, charting the growing friendship between privileged, timid Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) and best friend Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada), the scrappy son of the loyal family servant. One boy is wealthy; the other poor. While educated Amir dreams of telling stories and becoming a writer, illiterate Hassan is fully content with the simple pleasures of friendship. Both are taunted by town bully Assef (Elham Esas), and fearless Hassan serves as their protector.
The boys spend their days exuberantly running the streets of Kabul circa 1978, flying kites in tandem, with Hassan "running" for Amir’s kite during contests which unite the city on rooftops, expertly staged by Forester with the visual exhilaration of a mid-air dogfight.
Amir lives in a comfortable home with businessman father Baba (excellent Homayoun Ershadi), who fears his motherless son weak, sharing political and personal confidences with family friend Rahim (Shaun Toub), the Germans on the verge of occupation and national religious extremism on the rise.
After a joyous public victory in the kite competition, Hassan is brutally beaten and raped by Assef, while hidden Amir hesitates to intervene, setting off a fissure in their relationship. So far, so very good, with both believable young actors etching out detailed work culminating in an painful confrontation scene where a pomegranate becomes a small weapon of superiority, then self-esteem. Guilt and shame divide the boys and the household.
Soon father and son are forced out of country by the German occupation and into a perilous evacuation to America. Years later in California, young adult Amir (Khalid Abdallah) and father Baba eke out a living as booksellers, Amir still dreaming of becoming a famous writer to the gentle dismay of his dad. Hassan has many years since vanished from their lives, and the film.
About this time, The Kite Runner begins to lose dramatic focus in a series of domestic father-son scenes, standard-issue illness and a tepid courtship between Amir and Soraya (appealing Atossa Leoni), the daughter of a crusty Afghan ex-pat and former general brought low by scandal in the new land.
Soon enough, Amir is summoned back to his homeland by aged Rahim, and the story offers some surprises that send him on a mission back to modern-day Kabul, now a burnt-out, Taliban-infested wasteland where "they don’t even let you be human." And then the film nearly regains its footing sheerly by virtue of Forester’s excellent depiction of the tragic decline of a society, the death of optimistic childhood memories and a new world where the sky, once littered with kites, is now riddled with bullets. All of this should feel richer than it plays, despite appealing sensitivity brought to the role by a sensitive Abdallah (also excellent as a frightened hijacker in United 93).
So what exactly is missing from The Kite Runner, which for much of its running time is an engaging, handsome film? Well, the deeper themes of the story—regret, responsibility, loyalty—hang on Amir’s decision to remain reticent to help his friend during the unfortunate incident years prior, a cowardice spawning a guilt that should haunt his adult life. Yet in all of the present day plotting, the screenplay somehow de-emphasizes the emotional implications of this decision. I’ve seen the film twice, and just do not feel the lingering need for redemption that should flow through the adult Amir. He contains very little psychological dimension, and behaves in accordance to what the plot requires, rather than vice versa. The soul of this character is half-baked, and the character himself feels somewhat surface, despite a touching scene late in the film regarding a letter.
For all its good intentions and as well-made as much of it is, The Kite Runner does not dig deeply enough inside its reluctant hero. The plot is there all right, but the reason for it is unclear.
- Lee Shoquist
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