CS Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 12/14/07

One Thousand Days of Solitude

By david michael wharton

After years in development hell, the new, big-budget version of Richard Matheson's classic novel I Am Legend reaches theaters. While much has changed along the way, this snapshot of one man's loneliness and desperation to cling to hope honors the original and makes for a solid bit of holiday viewing, so long as you don't mind a little despair mixed in with your eggnog.

I Am Legend

Screenplay by Mark Protosevich and Akiva Goldman
Based on the novel by Richard Matheson

When a genetically engineered virus intended to cure cancer mutates sometime in the middle of the next decade, most of humanity is wiped out by the plague that sweeps the globe like wildfire. Those that survive are changed, altered into pale, bloodthirsty creatures with ferocious appetites and a violent allergy to daylight—and though the film goes out of its way to avoid the genre stigma of labeling them "vampires," that's effectively what they are. Several years after the outbreak, military scientist Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the lone homo sapien living in the overgrown remains of New York City, his only companion his dog, Sam. Each day he goes through his routine: scavenging for supplies, hunting deer through the empty streets, farming in a patch of Central Park he's converted for agriculture. At night, he barricades himself behind steel shutters, sleeps with a gun by his side, and tries to ignore the cries of the creatures outside as he waits for the salvation of dawn. It's an existence that could easily drive one mad, but Neville clings to the flimsiest fragment of hope: that he will someday find a cure that can salvage humanity.

I Am Legend unfolds much like the William Broyles, Jr.-scripted Cast Away, a study of enforced solitude and the walls the protagonist must build up to keep it at bay. For Neville, one of those walls is his quest for a cure. Several times in the film, he repeats the lines, "I refuse to let this happen. I can fix this!" Despite the many ways the script seems to suggest that it's far too late to fix anything, that goal is what keeps Neville going: part prideful belief that he can rescue humanity, part guilt over making that very promise to his daughter, and part simple denial because the alternative is too horrible to consider. Neville suffers from the ultimate survivor's guilt, greeting each day with the knowledge that his blood's immunity to the infection allowed him to survive when everyone else he has ever known either died or succumbed to mutation. This quest for a cure is directly ported from the novel, and it adds an extra element to Neville that would be lacking if he were just some random guy who happened to win the genetic lottery. It gives him a goal, something to work toward, however unlikely.

The other thing that keeps Neville going is Sam, the dog who serves as Neville's only friend and sounding board, the only other living thing in his life that isn't actively trying to kill him. In addition to giving Neville an emotional connection without which he would have long ago gone mad or killed himself, Sam serves the same practical purpose as Wilson the Volleyball in Cast Away: she gives Neville someone to talk to, so the first two-thirds of the movie don't unfold in silence or rely on the cumbersome trope of having Neville constantly talk to himself. Still, it's the former purpose that is most powerful, as demonstrated early in the film when Sam runs into a dark building that's been taken over as a lair for the so-called "Darkseekers." We see the lengths Neville will go to rescue Sam, and are given a glimpse of just how close to the edge he truly is, and how likely he is to slip over that edge without the simple companionship Sam provides.

Those looking for a balls-to-the-wall horror movie should look elsewhere, however. While the Darkseekers are for the most part true to Matheson's description of them, they're not particularly scary. Probably the tensest sequence is Neville's first onscreen encounter with them, when he goes into the dark building chasing after Sam. This sequence succeeds thanks to primal fears of the dark and the less-is-more philosophy. That first glimpse we get of the creatures, huddled together in a pitch-black corner, twitching in an entirely inhuman manner that's frightening precisely because it's incomprehensible. Are they sleeping? Communicating? That one moment is more frightening than all that comes after it simply because it concisely demonstrates how far removed from human these once-people have become. Unfortunately, once the Darkseekers creep out of the shadows both metaphorical and literal, they don't stand up to the light of day. It's a lesson Hollywood still doesn't seem to want to accept, but it's on full display here: CGI is not scary. Many of the tense moments that survived from an earlier draft of the script I read didn't translate well to the screen simply because the creatures feel too little like living, breathing things, and too much like multi-million-dollar cartoons.

With several parallels to Cast Away, I Am Legend unfortunately also shares one of that film's weaknesses. As powerful as Tom Hanks' performance while stranded on the island was, that film stumbled when he was rescued and returned to civilization. While I won't go into the details of Legend's third act, a similar problem occurs here, where Neville's solitude is interrupted, and the film doesn't quite seem sure what to do with itself after that point. The novel's original ending has been abandoned in favor of one that is simultaneously dark and hopeful, but that ending seems in some ways a bit too pat and bordering on cliché. Still, it's emotionally satisfying, serving as a ray of light after some very dark subject matter. And, as last month's The Mist showed, a truly bleak ending—while sometimes entirely honest and consistent with the tone of a story—can be a hell of a thing to leave an audience with.

More character study than horror show, I Am Legend nonetheless succeeds admirably as the former, with a solid script driving a memorable, mature performance from Smith. While it doesn't quite stick the landing, the film honors the book that birthed it while presenting an updated version of the story that's rooted in modern fears and preoccupations.

I Am Legend
Warner Bros.
Rated PG-13; 100 min.

Buy tickets now

David Michael Wharton is the managing editor of CS Weekly and a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting. If he ever survives a viral apocalypse, you'd better believe he's bringing his dogs with him.

I Am Legend courtesy Warner Bros.

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