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‘Of Mice and Men’ (PG-13)

The new movie version of John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" opens with scenes of a woman in a red dress, running through fields in desperate escape from some undefined terror. Her flight frames the movie, as though she is running, headlong, into the nameless dread of the future.

To say that "Of Mice and Men" is a classic understates the number of paperback copies that have been carried from school in homework stacks over the years. Just about everyone has either read or pretended to have read it, and if you add on the number of acting students who have used one of George or Lennie's speeches, the saturation spreads even further. Happily, director/star/co-producer Gary Sinise has approached it not with the awe of an English professor, but with the practical eye of a craftsman: Here are solid characters, a taut and emotional story, a beginning, a middle and a wrenching end.

The movie takes its tone from the Depression-era farm on which it is set: The dry blond wheat, the wooden houses, cramped and kerosene-lamp dark inside. The small rural pleasures like horseshoe pitching and a good meal. Everything is spare and simple; these people are poor but surviving. They work hard and expect little.

Sinise's and screenwriter Horton Foote's great gift is that they have not cluttered the story. Everything is very clear, and -- within its context -- makes sense. George Milton (Sinise), a laborer, has thrown his lot in with Lennie Small (John Malkovich), a hulking giant whose brain failed to develop with his body. George worked on the farm where the simple-minded Lennie lived with his aunt; when the aunt died, George became his protector and father figure. Lennie is strong and a good worker, and between the two of them they could earn enough money to buy their own small plot of land and a stake in the future.

But Lennie's strength is both his gift and his curse. Like the child he is mentally, he loves little animals, but inadvertently crushes them to death. Women, to him, are rather like animals -- soft, small and gentle. And therein lies the tension that powers this tale to its tragic conclusion.

The woman in the red dress (Moira Harris) is running, it turns out, from Lennie, and Lennie and George are running from her protectors. They jump a freight train and fetch up in another small California town, then take a bus to another where a rancher needs hands. The farmer's son, Curley (Casey Siemaszko), is a cruel and stupid bully, with a pretty young wife (Sherilyn Fenn) whom he restricts to the house like a present still stored in its wrapping.

Fenn gives a full dimension to the nameless woman, called only "Curley's wife" as a sign of her bondage. The woman is not very smart, and numbingly superficial, but she is lonely and bored, and hopelessly marooned in a doomed oasis surrounded by men who know that even talking to her could mean the loss of their job.

The acting in this movie is as flawless as one can expect from Hollywood. Malkovich uses his natural baldness, with bulky costumes, to become convincingly large and stupid. He never resorts to cliched idiocy, he just takes his time to show us the wheels turning slowly and uncomprehendingly behind his broad forehead. Sinise's George treats him with paternal tenderness; even while he complains that Lennie cramps his style, he needs someone to care for and plan with, and Lennie can help him find his dream. They're looking for just a little land, with a little house, and rabbits that Lennie can take care of and not worry about killing accidentally.

Need binds these characters. It is not a modern neurotic bond, but a common-sense one that was perhaps more able to flourish in that simpler, bleaker time. Candy (Ray Walston), the old ranch hand who is too feeble to be much good in the fields anymore, joins in their plans. He has saved some money, and he senses that he will not be tolerated for much longer on the Tyler Ranch.

This movie is filled with performances that are perfect little gems, but Walston's is perhaps the most brilliant. All Candy has in his life is a feeble old dog, and if you can remain unmoved by its fate you should check your pulse and make sure it's still there.

Sinise selects his details with intelligent care; the sound of a pistol shot that will be ultimately echoed by an even more dreadful one; the uneasy light that shines into the empty barn into which both Curley's wife and Lennie stray. All of the collaborators seem guided by the intention to let Steinbeck's brilliance shine through, unaugmented by false modern analysis or technical gimmickry. The result is exquisite; proof that with a tender touch the bullet sears more deeply.

Copyright The Washington Post

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