Carrie

William Wyler’s adaptation of Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie is marred by the constrictions imposed by the production code, and the material is never given the fully-realized treatment it deserves. There’s also a persistent feeling that many of the major players involved weren’t giving the film their full attention. We’ve seen Wyler adapt material far better than this, and Carrie had tremendous potential to reach for greatness.

Despite being the title character, Jennifer Jones’ Carrie doesn’t experience the full-range of emotional changes and textures that Laurence Olivier’s George Hurstwood does. Carrie floats throughout the film as a good girl struggling to make good, finding herself in compromising situations, and eventually gaining success as an actress. George leaves his wife and children for Carrie, and if that pound of flesh wasn’t a big enough price, and then loses everything else before ending up as a beggar on the street. He’s the true tragedy of the film.

It doesn’t help that Olivier and Jones never generate enough chemistry with each other to make the central romance and premise believable. Olivier is very good here, but there’s a dogged feeling that he’s acting at every possible moment. He never disappears into the role completely, and that Brechtian choice makes some of the tragedy feel cold and at an arm’s-length. While he’s on a technical-level giving a greater performance than Jones, she simply “is” on the screen throughout. We believe she is this naïve girl trying to capture her American Dream at every turn, even if the film never quite gets below the surface of the characters.

Too much of Carrie feels like a weepie of doomed romance, and it has a strong sense of Madame Bovary’s misfire about it. There’s a core missing here, and it’s papered over with pretty images and some solid work from its actors (Miriam Hopkins and Eddie Albert are both terrific in limited parts). It’s a perfectly fine tearjerker, but there was the prospective for so much more.