The Lottery

Rating:
Summary: Not Like The Movie I Saw In School!
Review: This made-for-TV movie, while of necessity having a story woven around Ms. Jackson's original short story (I guess in order to justify its 90-minute length), fell short in more than one way. The events leading up to Jason's trip to Maine and the town his dying father wished to have his ashes scattered in were less than convincing, as was the ending of the movie. We have Jason, the would-be hero, Felice, the fair damsel, the evil mayor who seemed to exercise God-like control over all the village's inhabitants (he forbade young Henry Watkins to go to a ball game the day of the lottery, and also persuaded Felice not to leave town with Jason on the eve of the lottery-though how he got into her home, much less her bedroom as she was packing is never really explained), the snotty sheriff's deputy and the villagers themselves. The only part of the movie worth watching was the lottery itself, although even that didn't follow the short story as well as I would have liked. The movie I saw in school was only about 40 minutes long, followed Ms. Jackson's story line exactly and was frightening to the point that I distinctly remember my blood running cold even though I was only in the seventh grade when I saw it. This TV fluff didn't really do justice to the horror I remember as a kid seeing that the woman who drew the marked ballot was about to be stoned to death so the corn would give a good harvest. The premise of the TV movie was that the stoning was a talisman against unemployment, crime, illiteracy and other social ills. Jason winds up in the state mental institution upon discovering the horrid truth of New Hope and its annual rite when he tries to report the stoning of Felice's mother. His father had wound up there for life for the same reason: his own wife was a victim of the rite and he consequently was banished from the village when he tried to save her. That Jason's father, then Jason himself winds up in the mental ward speaks of a conspiracy too large for credibility, in my view. I guess even a good storyteller isn't immune to the forces of political correctness.