I am not a fan of Twilight and I despise the franchise so much that it physically pains
me. I have no idea how on earth my
friends convinced me to read The Host.
The Host by Stephanie Meyer is
one of those rare occasions when I can stand up tall and announce that I have
read the book. I have decided not to bother
pretending that I am ashamed by this proclamation.
PLOT: Aliens have landed on earth and their “souls”
have taken over the human population save for small pockets of survivors. Melanie (Saoirse Ronan) is captured by the
Seekers and a soul named Wanderer is inserted into Melanie in an attempt to
track down the band of survivors.
Melanie remains conscious and tries to stop Wanda (Saoirse Ronan) from finding her younger
brother Jamie (Chandler Canterbury) and boyfriend Kyle (Max Irons). When Wanda arrives at the hideout she
struggles to keep Melanie quiet and finds herself conflicted after falling in love with Ian (Jake Abel).
Meanwhile The Seeker (Diane Kruger) is closing in on the humans and is
determined to wipe them out. END PLOT
I can understand why people did
not like the film and on another day I would agree with them as to the casual
passer by The Host is a confusing mess that brushes over the sci-fi elements in
favour of a love quartet consisting of three people.
The Melanie/Wanda exchanges were an
important part of the book. The only logical
way to incorporate this aspect of the book into the film was by using a voiceover. It didn’t quite work with Melanie appearing bratty rather than sassy despite being literally invaded by an alien.
The storytelling is disjointed
but this is down to terrible editing. We
never get to spend time getting to know Wanda, Jared and Ian as the film
constantly jumps to shots of The Seeker wandering around the dessert. With tighter editing, especially in the
opening act of the film, the story would have flowed much better.
It does have to be said that when
the film settled down the storytelling improved although it was by no
means perfect. There was no sense
of danger or tension and sequences like Wanda going to get medicine were
squandered by being rushed in favour of more Diane Kruger.
Saoirse Ronan is an excellent
young actress and although she appears a strange choice for the lead role it
was the correct one. If Melanie/Wanda
had fallen into the hands of some tween from the Nickelodeon channel it would
have killed the film.
There is a real sense of curiosity
surrounding Max Irons given that he is the son of the brilliant Jeremy Irons
and it will be interesting to see what he does next.
Jake Abel always gets the benefit
of the doubt. I never forgave
Supernatural for the treatment of the Wee Winchester at the end of season
five. I haven’t watched the show since
as I feel like killing off Abel’s character was a wasted opportunity.
I am not shallow. Nope. Not shallow at all..... nope nope nope. Definitely not shallow.
Irons and Abel were fine as the
love interests but unfortunately their roles were reduced in favour of Diane
Kruger. This was a mistake. Kruger
clearly wowed Andrew Niccol in some way but
her additional screen time did not add anything to the film – if anything it
almost killed it.
The cinematography was slick with
the alien controlled cities becoming bright and clean and the hideouts of the
humans being very dusty. The costumes followed
the same theme - the aliens were dressed in bright white which obviously contrasted to the
earthy colours the humans wore. The film
was pretty to look at but the styling wasn’t subtle.
Unfortunately The Host has many flaws
but they arise from the film-making and not from the characters or story. This is one of those occasions that I know I
could fix some of the problems by re-editing the film myself.
If it is still not clear, I may
have read the book under some form of duress but I ended up having a genuine
affection for it, as (goodbye faithful readers) it was impossible not to feel
for Ian and Wanda. Hello everybody. My
name is Karina and I am a fan of a Stephanie Meyer book.
My affection for the book has
spilled over into the film and has created some conflicting emotions. The Host is a
terrible film, but fuck it; it is a terrible film that I liked. There I have said it. Please don't judge me. It gets 6.5/10.