Friday September 11, 1998

     The sap is flowing early this year in fictional Gravestown, Maine, the primary setting of John Irving's complex novel "A Prayer for Owen Meany" and for filmmaker Mark Steven Johnson's simple "Simon Birch," a syrupy extract of the book.
     Simon Birch, an 11-year-old dwarf with a big faith, would be named Owen Meany if Irving felt Johnson had taken a fair run at the novel instead of using its first chapter as a jumping-off point. As it was, the author insisted on the character name change and a distanced writing credit (the movie is "suggested by" the novel rather than "based upon" it), and wished the filmmakers luck.
     They'll need it. While Simon/Owen remains a fascinating character, and is played with the ease of a veteran by sixth-grade discovery Ian Michael Smith, Johnson treats him as something like a live-action toy or a smart, exotic pet. He's a comic figure given an endless string of one-liners that play off his size in the same way dirty jokes play off the ages of the characters in Johnson's scripts for the "Grumpy Old Men" movies.
     "Simon Birch" is a reminiscence piece, told by Simon's best friend, Joe Wenteworth, looking back as an adult visiting Simon's grave. This is a somber Jim Carrey, who appears briefly in the opening and closing cemetery scenes and provides the narrator's voice throughout.
     "He's the reason I believe in God," Joe says, as the story begins, promising an epiphany that doesn't come until the film's climactic sequence.
     "Simon" tells the story of an eventful year in the '60s when its elfin hero got himself into a passel of jams that put him on the outs with just about everyone inGravestown except Joe (Joseph Mazzello); Joe's angelic mom, Rebecca (Ashley Judd); and her good-natured boyfriend, Ben (Oliver Platt).
     Simon's religious challenging of Gravestown's humorless Reverend Russell (David Strathairn) and sourpuss Sunday school teacher Miss Leavy (Jan Hooks) have them declaring him an infidel, while, in fact, he's the most religious person in town. Simon, so tiny at birth that he was delivered with a sneeze rather than a contraction, believes he was put on Earth for a reason, and buffers the cruelty and insensitivity of people around him with the knowledge that "things will be different when God makes me a hero."
     In the meantime, he's an outcast, even in his own home, where his farm parents are embittered by the misfortune they consider him to be. Bright, smart-alecky, self-denigrating and eagerly pubescent, Simon is a handful who gets himself into big trouble reaching for a handful during a Christmas church pageant, when a female schoolmate bends over the manger where he lies, playing baby Jesus.
     Most of Simon's mischief is done as farce, but when he hits a foul ball during a rare at-bat for his Little League baseball team, and it kills a passerby, the tone shifts, and the scene is set--telegraphed may be a better word for it--for his divine act of heroism and redemption.
     Paralleling Simon's religious journey is Joe's quest for the identity of his father. Mom won't reveal his name, so Joe, with Simon's help, is sizing up every age-eligible man in Gravestown as a candidate, running afoul of the law while he's at it.
     "Simon Birch" is a dreadfully sticky affair. Johnson, on his maiden voyage as director, treats every scene as if it were a bonbon, almost too precious to consume, and Marc Shaiman's score is a running series of mood cues.
     Smith, whose own dwarfism resulted from a rare bone disease, seems a natural before the camera, and not just because of his condition. Johnson gets mostly uninspired performances from the pros in his talented cast--Strathairn plays Reverend Russell like the Grim Reaper in a Monty Python sketch--and Smith's contrasting energy and earnestness give the film its few moments of lift.

Simon Birch, 1998. PG for language, emotional thematic elements and an accident scene. Hollywood Pictures presents in association with Caravan Pictures a Roger Birnbaum and Laurence Mark production, a Mark Steven Johnson film. Written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson. Suggested by the novel "A Prayer for Owen Meany," by John Irving. Produced by Laurene Mark and Roger Birnbaum. Executive producer John Baldecchi. Co-producer Billy Higgins. Director of photography Aaron E. Schneider. Production designer David Chapman. Edited by David Finfer. Music by Marc Shaiman. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes. Ian Michael Smith as Simon Birch. Joseph Mazzello as Joe Wenteworth. Ashley Judd as Rebecca Wenteworth. Oliver Platt as Ben Goodrich. Jim Carrey as Adult Joe Wenteworth.