In 1982, Stephen King released a collection known in the film industry as a magic book. Different Seasons consists of four novellas each linked to a season of the year and contains the source material for some of Hollywood’s most successful films. The collection’s third novella, The Body is the inspiration for Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me and the first, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, was adapted into Frank Darabont’s film (with a shortened title) which still holds the highest ranking on IMDb. The only story that has yet to be adapted is the fourth novella, The Breathing Method, a Christmas Story about a horrifying miracle birth. Though aligned with summer, the second story in the collection, Apt Pupil, is easily the darkest. Subtitled Summer of Discontent, Apt Pupil tells the story of Todd Bowden, a teenager who blackmails his neighbor–a former Nazi hiding in suburbia–into teaching him the trade of murder and depravity.
King’s newest collection, If It Bleeds, contains a similar though much lighter story. Mr. Harrigan’s Phone follows a child named Craig who takes an afternoon job reading to Mr. Harrigan, an old and lonely billionaire who’s recently moved to town. As the years go by, Craig and Mr. Harrigan develop a mentor/mentee relationship that changes the way Craig views the world. When Mr. Harrigan passes away, Craig slips his cellphone into the coffin as a sort of parting gift, accidentally forming a link with the old man from beyond the grave. King’s novella was recently adapted into a Netflix original film starring Jaeden Martell as Craig and Donald Sutherland as his elderly mentor. The movie is extremely faithful to the novella for better or worse, but director John Lee Hancock makes several minor changes that deepen the themes and create a perfect horror movie for the Autumn season.
Though it occurs over several years, Apt Pupil is a summer story. Much of the action takes place while Todd is on vacation from school and the heat of the summer months parallels the hell the two characters descend into as their shared evil deepens. Though King’s version of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is not explicitly linked to any particular season, Hancock’s film adaptation is a beautiful depiction of fall. It’s not the scariest story, relying mostly on the creepiness of a phone ringing from inside the grave. But what Mr. Harrigan’s Phone lacks in scares, it more than makes up for in an abundance of autumnal imagery. From its opening moments, Craig runs through a barren forest to the banks of a rocky quarry filled with murky water. The tiny town of Harlow, Maine is filled with fur-lined coats and blustery winds; the specific kind of fall where the trees have already lost their leaves, but the snow has yet to fall in earnest. The muted colors and cloudy skies feel just like November.
Aside from the ambiance, the overarching theme of Mr. Harrigan’s Phone is one of the connection. Craig and Mr. Harrigan first bond over the stories he reads and it’s in the wealthy man’s cavernous library that their friendship is forged. When Craig introduces him to the iPhone, they gain a more immediate way to connect and Mr. Harrigan finds himself reluctantly pulled into Craig’s world. While most scenes from the book play out almost word for word, Hancock explores Craig’s relationship with the memory of his mother, another connection from beyond the grave.
King does not tell us much about Craig’s mother. We never learn how she died, only that it happened when Craig was young. He does miss her but says that time has faded her memory. Hancock adds more to the story, bringing to life a brief mention of an afternoon spent with daisy chains in a sunny field. Craig has been reluctant to visit his mother’s grave and blames himself for her death. He looks longingly at her headstone when burying Mr. Harrigan, but knows that if he walks over to it, he will have to admit that she’s really gone.
Hancock also adds an element of mystery to the story as Craig wonders why he was chosen for the job. King’s story tells us it’s because he is a “precocious reader,” capable of bringing to life complicated books even when he doesn’t understand the subject matter. There’s no larger intention other than Mr. Harrigan’s desire for companionship. But the film tells us there’s another link between the two characters located in Mr. Harrigan’s closet full of “secrets.” In the film’s conclusion we learn that Mr. Harrigan also lost his mother at a young age. Sensing this heartbreaking connection, Hancock’s Mr. Harrigan seeks Craig out perhaps to provide the guidance for Craig he once longed for himself. Or maybe he’s just looking for someone to share in his loneliness.
King’s Mr. Harrigan is mostly just a cranky old man, but Hancock goes out of his way to present him as a villain. Though he is kind to Craig, his housekeeper warns the boy about ever getting on his bad side. The seeds of this villainy exist in King’s text, but Hancock adds flourishes to the story that bring out the character’s quiet menace. In King’s version, Craig is not targeted by bullies until after Mr. Harrigan’s death and must imagine the advice his mentor would provide. Hancock brings this imagined conversation to life and Sutherland eerily commands the young teen to dispatch his enemies without remorse. We also get more information about Mr. Harrigan’s own enemy, Dusty Bilodeau. After catching Dusty stealing, Mr. Harrigan blackballed the unfortunate man, keeping him from working in the state of Maine. The film continues this story and tells us he died by suicide as a result of Mr. Harrigan’s actions, foreshadowing the punishment he will dole out to Craig’s enemies.
While King is musing on the effects of cell phone technology, Hancock is much more interested in exploring guilt, grief, and revenge. Once he enters high school, Craig finds himself tormented by an older classmate named Kenny Yankovich (Cyrus Arnold). King’s Kenny is a pretty straightforward bully, similar to Ace Merril in The Body, but Hancock’s Kenny is much more pathetic. Though we hate what he’s doing, we understand how lonely he must feel as an outcast from the wrong side of the tracks. Even Hancock’s version of his death is more tragic. King’s Kenny dies by auto-erotic asphyxiation, a salacious, but devastating accident that implies he may have brought death on himself. The film chooses one of the explanatory rumors King describes circulating through the school and shows Kenny dying in a tragic fall while intoxicated. A clever bit of visual symmetry places his body in the exact position that Craig ends up after Kenny’s violent attack. The book takes us a while to make an explicit connection between this causal relationship, but the film shows us that Mr. Harrigan is responsible for Kenny’s death almost immediately.
Kenny’s death also provides an interesting connection to Hancock’s exploration of Craig’s grief for his mother. In both stories, Craig watches Kenny’s family cry as his body is wheeled away on a gurney but Hancock provides a parallel image of a young Craig walking through a hospital. This tiny embellishment adds new meaning to Craig’s realization that grief is not solely for him and further informs his reluctance to visit his mother’s grave.
Hancock also makes great use of Mr. Harrigan’s ring-tone: a snippet of Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man. It’s one thing to read King’s description of this symbolic choice, and quite another to actually hear the blaring chorus ring from six feet under. The ringtone also provides one of the film’s best scares. Late one night, Craig calls Mr. Harrigan to ask if he had anything to do with Kenny’s death. King’s Harrigan responds with a text message in the early morning hours while Craig is asleep, but Hancock has Craig’s phone ring seconds later. It’s a great jump scare that makes us wonder what he would hear if Craig did dare to answer.
The connection he makes with Mr. Harrigan gives Craig control over the fates of his enemies. When he realizes he’s been responsible for Kenny’s death, Craig can’t handle the guilt and it’s likely he’s remembering the responsibility he feels for the death of his mother. Placing the phone in Mr. Harrigan’s coffin could be seen as a reluctance to let go of another parental figure. As long as they both possess their phones, he can tell himself he still has some sort of contact. Mr. Harrigan is not truly gone as long as Craig can still call him. It’s only when Mr. Harrigan begins to answer that Craig realizes the ghastly relationship he’s attempting to create.
He finally lets go of the phone after asking Mr. Harrigan to murder another one of his enemies: a drunk driver who caused the death of his favorite teacher. When the guilt of this latest request proves unbearable, Craig finally realizes that attempting to control life and death is only hurting him. Throwing the phone into the quarry is a symbolic act that allows him to finally begin grieving for his lost friend and mentor. After sending a final message of thanks, he says goodbye to Mr. Harrigan and forever breaks the connection.
If the phone is a symbol of the link between Mr. Harrigan and Craig, the dried daisy chain symbolizes memories of his mother. He stores both out of sight on a high shelf in his closet, perhaps trying to bury the pain of these losses. While both symbols cause Craig pain, by bringing to mind a painful loss, only the phone continues to hurt. The flower crown is a joyful memory and reminds Craig of his mother’s love. She has no way of contacting him, but this allows her to live forever in his memory, just as he remembers her in their happiest moments. It’s only once he’s accepted Mr. Harrigan’s death that Craig is finally able to grieve for his own mother. King ends his novella with Craig’s ominous desire to die with empty pockets, but Hancock gives us an image of Craig sobbing at her grave.
If King were to match Mr. Harrigan’s Phone to a season, it would surely be fall. The film is filled with autumn imagery, but it’s also a story about letting go. As the leaves die and fall from the trees signaling the death of one season and the beginning of another, Craig must learn to accept that death and change are inevitable parts of life. Each year, we mourn the loss of summer’s warmth, but each autumn is a chance to say goodbye to the past and begin looking forward to the new year to come. With every death comes the possibility for change, growth, and renewed life. But only if we’re brave enough to accept it.
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