Review: Hawaii

Not the 50th state, but the 1966 film, based on a James Michener novel.

George Roy Hill directed the story of a missionary (Max Von Sydow) and his wife (Julie Andrews) who move to Hawaii from New England in 1819. Admittedly as someone from New England, with deep roots in the region, young Puritan ministers who just graduated from Yale may possibly be the worst people to send to the far side of the world as missionaries. But that’s me.

In short, Von Sydow is an uptight Puritan, Andrews is a slightly less uptight Puriatn. I love both of them as actors, but they don’t make an especially believable couple. Having said that, I have met couples where the only sign of affection between them is that they have biological children.

The film is not without its charms. It was filmed in Hawaii and the scenery is spectacular. The supporting cast includes Gene Hackman and John Cullum. But the actors I was most impressed by were the Hawaiian and Polynesian actors like Jocelyn LaGarde and Manu Tupou, who really stole the film.

I will say that the film, which covers about two decades, does manage to portray what happened with some accuracy. This isn’t whitewashed. Sailors take advantage of women. Whites bring disease and we witness a large part of the community including characters we know die in a horrific scene. Von Sydow and others oppose the plans of most missionaries and the white community to buy property and build plantations in the island, which one missionary justifies as their payment for their decades of good work.

And for all that, the film remains distant and aloof from what’s happening. And the final scene which is supposed to be this moving emotional moment has some meaning, but it doesn’t hit like it should. I’m a fan of the director George Roy Hill, who remains best known for The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The World According to Garp. And when he was good - in those and in other films - it was because he was masterful at capturing a certain tone. He had this light touch. Bemused, maybe? His films tend to feature unusual characters in unusual scenarios and trying to muddle their way through. Hawaii has interesting characters, but it has very little humor. Maybe because it’s a historical epic and we have to be serious about such things? Hill’s films tend to be much smaller and maybe he got lost trying to make something this big.

So, Hawaii is not that good. It’s not good and on top of that, the film is nearly three hours long. If it were two hours long, I don’t think that it would have been a better movie, but I would have liked it better.