Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is adapted from one of the short stories in Stephen King’s book If It Bleeds. It’s a strange choice but, also, probably the most filmable story in that book. It feels like they poured through the book looking for something – anything – to adapt and settled on this oddity.
The film is about a kid who gets paid to read classic literature to a rich old man. They form a bond so the kid buys him the first iPhone when its released. When the old man dies, the kid slips the phone into his suit and he’s buried with it. And then the kid receives a text message…
That’s just the first hour and then the movie just. keeps. going. It’s a story desperately looking for a story. What is this movie even about? Because half of it is a solid, warm drama about the friendship between these two unlikely friends. And then it’s a remorseful tale about grief, it’s about school bullies, it’s about that special teacher in high school, it’s about going to college, and it’s got a hint of supernatural terror.
Part of the short story just felt like Stephen King grappling with the concept of smart phones… and… ok… it read like an old writer talking about them kids these days. And maybe kicking around the old horror trope of receiving a call from someone you find out has just died.
But it also feels like he wrote a nice drama about the friendship between the kid and the old man… and then realized he was Stephen MFing King so he spiced it up with some spooky. Which would have been like if he wrote The Body (aka Stand By Me) and decided Ray Brower would be a shambling zombie at the end of that novella.
The story in both book and film form just never really comes together. It’s a bit more forgivable in print but it’s a big ask for a one-hundred minute film. I think I respect what it’s trying to do, but it’s just so slow and unfocused, especially in its second half. It’s almost commendable that they try to tell this convoluted, ambling story… but maybe they should have thought twice and just made it a short film instead.
Score: 68