POWDER

 

Publicity poster for Powder (© Hollywood Pictures/Caravan Pictures/Roger Birnbaum Productions/Daniel Grodnick Productions/Buena Vista Pictures – reproduced here on a strictly non-commercial Fair Use basis for educational/review purposes only)

Having watched an inordinate number and variety of movies at home this year due in no small way to the frequent Covid-enforced lockdowns and attendant ongoing social restrictions, I suppose that I'm possibly at risk of becoming somewhat blasé to films that under normal circumstances might have moved me more than they have done. But not last night, when I watched on DVD a film that didn't so much move me as spin me around in a veritable vortex of emotion, bowling me over with the raw power of the thunder and rending me asunder with the electrifying energy of the lightning that form such an integral part of this truly awesome movie. Its title? Powder.

SPOILER ALERT – I need and very much want to tell the story of this amazing film, so read no further if you don't want to know its plot.

Released in 1995, Powder tells the inspirational, often heartbreakingly sad, but truly extraordinary story of a truly extraordinary person. Played with immense poignancy and control by Sean Patrick Flanery, his name is Jeremy Reed, but his nickname is Powder, which, although never explained, presumably refers to his pure white skin, as pale as talcum powder. For Powder is an albino, with photo-sensitive pink eyes that he shields from the sun's pain-inducing rays behind dark sunglasses. Moreover, for reasons that subsequently become clear, he is also entirely, naturally hairless.

Powder's mother was in late pregnancy with him when she was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm. Paramedics rushed her to hospital, but tragically they were unable to save her. However, Powder was delivered alive and was in an incubator when his grief-stricken father was told the shattering news of his wife's passing. When he asked to see their baby and discovered that Powder was an albino, he disowned him. Happily, Powder's grandparents accepted him and reared him on their large but fairly isolated farm, where he grew strong, carrying out all of the chores too arduous for them. On account of his appearance, they did not send Powder to school but his grandmother home-schooled him with the many books that they kept stored in the farmhouse's cool, roomy basement, and where Powder would spend a lot of time reading them, especially when it was too hot and bright outside for his pallid skin and sensitive eyes to endure.

Eventually, Powder's grandmother died, and some time afterwards his grandfather fell over and also died, at which time Powder was in his late teens/early 20s. Very distraught, Powder phoned the police, who send out two officers to the farm (marking the beginning of the movie's principal portion), where they are shocked at Powder's appearance and strange, almost unearthly demeanour. However, one of the officers, Sheriff Doug Barnum (Lance Henriksen), sees the shy, frightened, traumatized youth behind his singular countenance, and treats him compassionately, as does the accompanying child psychologist Jessie Caldwell (Mary Steenbergen), but the other, much more brutal officer, Deputy Sheriff Harley Duncan (Brandon Smith), is visibly and verbally revulsed.

As a ward of court now, Powder is taken to a state home for dispossessed youths by Jessie, but she is able to obtain blue contact lenses for him to protect his eyes, which his grandparents had been unable to afford. She also allows him to attend a mainstream school when she discovers that he is exceptionally bright and possesses a photographic memory, having not only memorized but also thoroughly understood every page in every single book in the basement back home on his grandparents' farm. Moreover, it is now that we begin to see a very different gift also exhibited by Powder – the ability to manipulate energy, especially electrical energy, seemingly a direct outcome of having been exposed while in his mother's womb to the bolt of lightning that killed her. He can move objects by telekinesis, much to the consternation of the bullies at the state home when they tried to torment him following his arrival there.

Moreover, electricity seems irresistibly drawn to him. For instance, when a piece of demonstration equipment – a Jacob's Ladder – in his physics class at school generates a series of high-voltage, travelling electrical arcs, suddenly the electricity surges out of the equipment and fires directly into Powder's chest, raising him horizontally off the ground before physics teacher Donald Ripley (Jeff Goldblum) is able to shut it off.

Powder is rushed to hospital, but is found to be entirely unharmed, even though there is a singed hole in his shirt where the bolt of electricity struck his chest. Donald is fascinated and in awe of Powder's capabilities. He also realizes why Powder is hairless – the electricity coursing throughout every cell of his body is acting as a natural form of electrolysis. Furthermore, when a series of intelligence tests are run on him, they reveal that Powder has the highest IQ ever recorded – completely off the scale, in fact.

Inevitably, however, the youths at the state home are not impressed by this, leading to ever more bullying, which culminates in Powder's chief tormentor, John Box (Bradford Tatum), threatening him with a gun during a deer hunt. But when a deer is fatally shot there by Deputy Sheriff Duncan, Powder's normally passive, gentle nature evaporates, and he seizes Duncan's wrist at the same time as placing his own hand on the neck of the dying deer. In so doing, Powder conducts like an electrical current the pain, shock, and terror of impending death suffered by the deer directly into Duncan, who promptly collapses in a seizure, before subsequently coming round. As a result, Duncan, previously a passionate, enthusiastic hunter, gives up hunting entirely and gets rid of all of his guns, because he is unable to forget what a shot animal experiences, but he is also unable to forgive Powder for destroying his former pleasure.

By now, unloved, unwanted, misunderstood, a total outcast simply because he is different, Powder is desperate to return home to the farm, the only sanctuary that he has ever known, and where he could once again spend his days away from prying eyes and scurrilous tongues. However, he is prevented from doing so by legal probate issues, thus making him ever more agitated and, as a result, his energy-manipulating talents ever more unstable.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Doug Barnum is equally traumatized – his wife lies close to death, barely conscious and in agonizing pain from cancer, but for some mystifying reason seems determined to hold onto life, as if there is something that she wants to see done, to be achieved still. Desperate to unravel the mystery so that her cryptic wishes can be fulfilled, thereby enabling her to pass on and be free of her pain, and mindful of claims that Powder can read minds by telepathy, Doug asks him to come to his home and see if there is anything that he can do.

Powder sits beside her and gently places his hand on her brow. After a few moments, he tells Doug that his wife wishes him to make up with their son, Steven, from whom Doug has been estranged for a long time. She would also like him to place her wedding ring on her finger – it had been lost for a long time but had recently been found by Steven who had returned it in a small silver jewel box, which was now on a dressing table in the bedroom. So Doug tenderly places the ring on his wife's finger, promises that he and Steven will make up, and tells her how much he loves her, after which she smiles and passes on, her wishes all fulfilled, her pain all gone. At this point, I paused the film for a while – too many similar memories and emotions from my mother's passing.

Another, even more savage encounter with the bullies at the state home takes place a little later, but this time during a thunderstorm, in which Powder's fear and unleashed rage results in the storm's lightning discharging through him and seemingly killing Box before Powder retakes control of his powers, harnessing them to successfully restart Box's heart. As a result, one of the bullies helps Powder to escape back to his farm, only for him to discover to his despair that everything in it has been removed, even his beloved books in the basement. He sits there disconsolately as Jessie, Donald, Doug, and Deputy Sheriff Duncan all arrive, having discovered him missing at the home and either guessing or learning where he has gone.

Jessie, Doug, and Donald coax Powder to come out of the house, with Jessie and Donald promising that they will take him where no-one can ever harm or mistreat him again, where he will be appreciated for the truly astonishing person that he is. Duncan, however, grabs a police walkie-talkie, and calls for police back-up. At the same time, another thunderstorm begins, so, knowing how dangerous and unpredictable it can be for Powder to be outside in such weather, Jessie, Doug, and Donald implore him to get into their car.

Instead, in an outpouring of beatific joy and ultimate release, Powder runs across a field, laughing at last and with arms fully outstretched, greeting the storm as if it were a dear friend, with the others following close behind and greatly alarmed, until suddenly, an enormous bolt of lightning strikes down from the heavens, hitting Powder with explosive force – and he is gone.

During his brief time spent with Jessie, Donald, and Doug since being discovered after his grandfather had died, Powder had always emphasized that everything and everyone is connected to everything else and everyone else. For we are all energy, and as we all learned at school, energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be transferred from one form to another. This had greatly comforted Doug following his wife's passing, and is a concept that I hold onto dearly myself, with my own family no longer here in physical, tangible form. And now, Powder had become one with the electrical energy that had infused him even before he was born and had utilized him like a living capacitor throughout his life. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, but energy undying, unending, universal, forever. So be it.

This very pure, enormously affecting movie, which reminded me a little at times of The Boy Who Could Fly (click here to read my review of it) is exquisitely complemented by the gorgeous musical theme that plays intermittently throughout it – one that I was already very familiar with, because I had first heard it many years ago, but in the form of a song, entitled 'No One Like You', which was a track on an album by British opera/musicals star Sarah Brightman, and which I loved instantly and ever afterwards. What I didn't realize until much more recently, however, is that the lyrics to this song had actually been written by Sarah herself, after having watched Powder and being greatly moved just like me by its beautiful melody. So please click here to listen to Sarah singing 'No One Like You', her heartfelt lyrics accompanying the truly sublime theme from an incomparably sublime, mesmerising movie.

If you'd like to experience the spellbinding wonder, strangeness, sadness, and beauty that is Powder, please click here to view an official trailer for it on YouTube. And if you are able to watch the full film, do so – because if it moves you the way that it has moved me, I have no doubt that this remarkable film will stay in our memory long after most others have slipped away into the void of lost remembrances that I fondly recall my mother aptly referring to as our forgettery. God bless you Mom, I wish so much that you were still here with me – but perhaps in some form you are, perhaps in some form you are still and always will be.

Finally: to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE!

THE BOY WHO COULD FLY

Front cover of my official VHS videocassette of The Boy Who Could Fly (© Nick Castle/Lorimar Motion Pictures/20^th Century Fox)

I have previously noted (when reviewing Hyper Sapien: People From Another Star) that the 1980s saw a profusion of family-friendly movies with fantasy or sci-fi themes, but of which only a relatively small number achieved notable critical acclaim and/or major commercial success, with the remainder soon fading away into the mists of movie obscurity, despite the fact that some of these latter films were greatly deserving of a much more favourable reception. A couple of nights ago, I watched another of these unfairly all-but-forgotten 1980s fantasy movies, and I can say without hesitation that it is one of the most moving, poignant, and thoroughly delightful films that I have ever watched, and I cannot for the life of me understand why it did not achieve all-time-classic status.

Directed (and also written by) by Nick Castle, and originally released in 1986, the movie in question is The Boy Who Could Fly, and was entirely new to me, my reason for purchasing its official VHS videocassette some time ago having been based entirely upon its intriguing title and front cover image, but with no knowledge whatsoever of its plot – which, as I discovered when finally watching it two nights ago, is a very memorable, emotive one, and is as follows.

Charlene Michaelson is a widowed mother with two children, teenage daughter Milly (played by Lucy Deakins) and younger son Louis (Fred Savage), plus their dog Max. They move to a new home and neighbourhood, and discover that their next-door neighbor Hugo is an amiable but seemingly incurable alchoholic (played with a touching blend of humour and pathos by none other than Fred Gwynne, best known as Herman Munster from the popular TV show The Munsters). Moreover, Hugo Gibb is nominally the guardian of his seemingly autistic nephew Eric Gibb (Jay Underwood), who is the same age as Milly but has never spoken a single word, and after the death of both parents in a plane crash has retreated inside himself completely, not associating with anyone and obsessed with pretending to be an aeroplane, walking around with arms outstretched. The authorities are keen on committing Eric to an institution, especially as Hugo seems incapable of looking after him adequately, but on a previous occasion when he was committed, Eric became so ill that he almost died. And so, following the emphatic intervention of one of his school's teachers, Mrs Carolyn Sherman, Eric was reluctantly released back into Hugo's uncertain custody.

Milly becomes very intrigued by Eric and is encouraged by Mrs Sherman to watch over him, as he seems to respond to her, albeit only minimally – but as the weeks go by, Eric's response to Milly gradually increases, first of all by mimicking her and following her around, then by smiling at her of his own accord rather than merely as an act of mimicry, and even on one occasion catching a baseball that was about to hit her on the head. Little by little, almost imperceptibly, Milly begins to fall in love with Eric. But there remains something very strange, very mysterious, about him, inasmuch as he suddenly appears in places where it seems impossible that he could have reached by normal means.

On one such occasion, while Eric is sitting on the windowsill of Milly's second-floor bedroom that faces his own bedroom in his house, Milly turns away from him for just a moment, but when she turns back again she finds to her amazement that he is now sitting on his own second-floor bedroom's windowsill of his own home next door. Yet there is a very sizeable gap between the two windowsills, far too wide for anyone to jump, so how did he get there in the matter of just a moment? Milly begins to entertain the idea, crazy as she knows it seems, that Eric can fly. But an even stranger incident is soon to happen.

During a school trip to a botanical garden, Milly and Eric become separated from the others in the school  party, and Milly stands on a barrier to reach up for a white rose that she would like to pick but is just out of her reach. Attempting to grab it, she loses her footing and falls 50 ft down to the ground below, banging her head on the barrier as she does so, which renders her unconscious. Yet when she wakes up in hospital, her only injury is the bump to her head caused by the barrier, despite having fallen such a distance down onto the ground. As Milly lies there in bed, Eric appears at her window, despite the fact that her hospital room is several floors up. He gives to her the white rose that she had been trying to pick when she fell, and she asks him if he had caught her when she fell and whether, therefore, he can indeed fly. Eric smiles shyly and nods, then takes Milly's hand and flies out of the window with her, taking her upon a wonderful aerial tour of the city before sitting on a cloud with her to watch the sun set and kissing her gently, then taking her back to her room.

Sadly, however, it all proves to have been just a dream, which turns into a nightmare when Milly sees her father lying dead in hospital before waking up in shock, and later learning that although she had always believed that her father had died of cancer, it turned out that in reality he hadn't been able to deal with the cancer and had instead committed suicide. This in turn makes Milly wonder whether her belief in Eric being able to fly is just a trick that her grieving mind has been playing upon her. After being released from hospital, Milly goes back home, only to receive another shock, learning that during her absence the authorities had deemed Hugo unfit to look after Eric any longer and had committed Eric to an institution again. Milly and her family promptly go there to see him, but are not allowed to do so. Nevertheless, Eric sees them through a window, and bangs upon it in a desperate but vain attempt to attract their attention, and has to be restrained by staff as they unsuspectingly drive away.

Somehow, however, Eric manages to escape (it is never revealed how), and Milly finds him back at his home, curled up and shaking with cold and fear in the attic, where he gives her a ring for her finger. The authorities arrive, so Milly and Eric flee to their school, in the hope of finding sanctuary there with Mrs Sherman, but the police have already arrived, and give chase, finally cornering them on the roof of one of the school's tall, multi-storey  buildings. Standing on the edge of the building as a policeman cautiously approaches, and holding Milly's hand, Eric looks at her and slowly but deliberately says "Milly", the first word that he has ever spoken. Milly looks at him and, just like in her dream but this time in reality, asks him if he can fly – and, smiling, Eric nods his head. They look over the edge, Milly grips Eric's hand tightly – and then they jump!

SPOILER ALERT! If you don't want to know how this movie ends, read no further!

Publicity poster for The Boy Who Could Fly (© Nick Castle/Lorimar Motion Pictures/20^th Century Fox)

The route that the storyline of The Boy Who Could Fly has taken so far means that only two outcomes are truly feasible (a third, that it is all just a dream, has already been utilized during the scene with Molly recovering in hospital). Either the whole 'can Eric really fly?' mystery has all been a tantalizing red herring, in which case he and Milly will plunge to their death; or he can indeed fly, which will instantly transform what has hitherto been as much a psychological suspense drama as anything else into a full-blown fantasy movie.

In a sense, whichever option proves to be the one chosen by this movie's creators will be disappointing, because it is the uncertainty of whether Eric really can fly that has been so compelling throughout the movie, making it thoroughly engrossing – but one of them has to be chosen. And if I say that the movie's title and videocassette cover do rather give the game away right from the very start, plus this is a family movie after all, you will not be at surprised to know that, yes indeed, after plummeting downwards for a moment, Eric and Milly suddenly soar up above the crowds of concerned people standing all around watching the rooftop drama unfold, swooping over the local park and over the streets back to their own homes, followed by the excited, unbelieving crowd, and swiftly joined by media cameramen, police, and everyone else in the vicinity.

When they reach Milly's home, Milly sits on her bedroom's windowsill while Eic remains hovering in the air next to her. Slowly, hesitantly, but with great concentration, he speaks to her the word "Goodbye", followed by "I love you". They kiss, then Eric flies away, never to return. Although Milly is immensely sad, she understands Eric's reason for leaving, realizing that once the police and scientists arrived, he would have become the subject of unending studies, medical researches, and continued investigations to discover how he could fly – in short, he would never have been free again.

And indeed, even though Eric escaped, all manner of tests were subsequently performed upon Milly, to see if she held any clues regarding their airborne activity, and also upon Eric's uncle Hugo, as he was a blood relative and may therefore hold vital information concerning this physiological anomaly. However, although Eric was gone, his example of how anything can be conquered if you are brave enough inspired Milly to do well at school, her young brother Louis to confront and dispel the local bullies who had been making his life a misery, Milly's mother to learn how to utilize the office computers that had been holding her back at work, and even Hugo, who gives up alcohol and successfully gains employment in a responsible job.

Sometimes, Milly stares up at the setting sun, remembering Eric, her dream of when they were sitting on a cloud gazing at the sunset, and that electrifying moment when finally they flew together in real life – hoping that somehow, someday, he will come back, and they will be together again, a silent boy and a beautiful girl who loved and will always love him so much. And who knows, perhaps it really is true that if you wish hard enough and love long enough, anything can happen. I for one would certainly like to believe that.

What makes this magical film so affecting and inspirational are the truly moving performances of the two leads. Lucy Deakins as Milly gives a totally believable, evocative rendition as the sympathetic teenager who initially feels merely sadness for the strange unspeaking youth shunned by his classmates but as she comes to know him more and more finds herself drawn ever closer to him, especially when her determined efforts to reach the grieving mind locked away behind his enigmatic eyes, until eventually she realizes that she loves him.

But it is Jay Underwood as Eric to whom this movie belongs. His portrayal of the autistic youth who has additionally suffered ever since a small child from the severe, lasting trauma caused by abruptly losing both parents in a singularly shocking manner and with no-one left in his life to help him deal with these profound issues is nothing short of mesmerizing. We watch entranced as, little by little, his mind is awoken and his spirit given veritable wings of inspiration by the care and love shown to him – for the very first time in his life since his parents' demise – via Milly's tenacious attempts to bring forth the real Eric, as revealed by actor Jay's very expressive face and body language. Plus the tantalizing ever-present question of whether Eric really can fly compels us even further to remain focused upon and fascinated by this truly spellbinding movie.

If you can find The Boy Who Could Fly on DVD, videocassette, or anywhere online, please do take the time to watch it. You will never regret doing so, and it will certainly reinforce how potent and fundamental a force love can be, capable of transforming a mere existence into a vibrant life. And here is a trailer to show you exactly what I mean.

Finally: to view a complete listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE! 

Another publicity poster for The Boy Who Can Fly (© Nick Castle/Lorimar Motion Pictures/20^th Century Fox)