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I Am DavidAn infuriatingly soppy adaptation of Anne Holm's 1963 novel of the same name, I Am David sells itself - in the wake of the international success of The Passion Of The Christ - on the presence of Jim Caviezel, even though he's actually in it for about 10 minutes. The rest of the film's torturously monotonous running time focuses on annoying hero David (Tibber), who flees from a Bulgarian labour camp and sets off across post-war Europe in search of identity, freedom and a family. It's a journey that's likely to unite both children and adults in utter boredom.
With just one main character wandering in isolation across the European countryside, Holm's novel was never going to be the easiest story to turn into a film. Directing from his own script Paul Feig (better known in America as the creator of short-lived TV drama 'Freaks & Geeks') doesn't do himself any favours by casting the most unlikeable lead child actor imaginable. Tibber's combination of doleful looks and annoyingly high-pitched voice is a true movie killer. Worse still is the fact that he only has two expressions: saucer-eyed terror and lemon-sucking petulance. In the novel, David was so traumatised by the horrors of the camp that he was unable to smile. But in the novel, you weren't forced to watch him for 90 minutes straight.
In the grey-tinged flashbacks to life behind the barbed wire, Jim Caviezel plays kindly inmate Johannes, who's about as worthy and self-sacrificing as the actor's last, better-known turn as the son of God. The presence of the actor formerly known as the Messiah recalls the novel's religious chatter, but Feig's not interested in doing much with the theme. Ignoring most of the novel's talk about David's Old Testament namesake and the Psalms, Feig dutifully recounts each of David's encounters with opera-loving truck drivers, sour shopkeepers and a little girl he rescues from a life-threatening fire with po-faced seriousness. By the time the pan pipe music kicks in and Joan Plowright turns up as a kindly old painter who teaches the boy how to trust again, most viewers are likely to have lost the will to live.
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