Theme Song: Endless emotive piano and sentimental orchestrations by Michael Hoppe. Every scene features a piano or a violin; it’s incessant.
Interesting Dated References: Stiff and cruel fathers learning to change their behavior.
Social Context: Essentially an examination of “daddy issues,” Misunderstood is an odd adaptation of an Italian film named Incompreso from 1967. This remake gets a few things wrong and makes changes, lessening the emotional impact of the original.
Summary: Ned (Gene Hackman) is an often-absent, workaholic father. When his wife dies, he decides it’s best only to tell his older son (who is around age ten) and intentionally keeps the information from the younger child (maybe five years old).
But there’s no explanation or clarification on why he goes this route, so it’s extra confusing. This knowledge causes a lot of emotional turmoil between Ned and the older child, Andrew (Henry Thomas). The adult characters spend the entirety of the runtime shielding the youngest from the knowledge his mother is dead.
Meanwhile, Andrew is subjected to endless emotional stonewalling from his father. This goes on and on. Eventually, the two start to make amends, and we’re still not supposed to care that Ned hasn’t told the youngest child his mother is dead.
Then, because of Andrew’s hobby of swinging from the limb of a dead tree over the ocean, there’s a tragic accident. Ned sees the error of his ways, and all it took was one of his children being permanently paralyzed.
Worth Mentioning:
– Directed by Jerry Schatzberg (Panic In Needle Park, Scarecrow).
– Rip Torn is in this, but his role was unremarkable.
– The source movie, Incompreso (1967), is based on a novel of the same name written in 1869. The book has been adapted into several movies and teleplays worldwide because emotionally unavailable fathering is a universal theme.
– It was filmed in the African country of Tunisia, which makes for beautiful scenery.
Poster and Box Art: The US theatrical poster makes this movie seem like a wacky divorced dad movie, featuring a smiling photo of all three characters. It also includes the ridiculous tagline “For every kid who wants to be hugged. For every parent who wants to love and understand.” which makes no sense in the context of this movie.
The foreign poster features a better illustration by Enzo Sciotti, who created many awesome Italian and horror posters in the 80s. It’s nice to see something a little more tame from him. Here’s the original artboard:
