★★

From director Ramin Bahrani comes the newest adaptation of the Ray Bradbury classic with the goal of re-contextualizing the story in a contemporary setting to give it a newfound relevance in today's world. Unfortunately, it largely misses the mark. With its convoluted view of today's society and lack of emotional intensity, the audience was given little reason to care about the events onscreen. Upheld solely by performances from its main cast, Fahrenheit 451 is mediocre at best in the execution of its storytelling.

In the not-so-distant future, Guy Montag (Michael B. Jordan) works as a fireman who, rather than puts out fires, starts them. Under the supervision of Captain Beatty (Michael Shannon), Montag burns books and other (scarcely mentioned) media in an effort to continue the ongoing erasure of free thought in society. But when Montag crosses paths with Clarisse (Sofia Boutella), he is gradually exposed to a whole world of hidden ideas and culture, and begins to realize that perhaps his occupation is doing more harm than good.

I had the chance to view this film at an early screening, which I was initially excited about because it meant I got to watch it in all its glory on the big screen before it became available on HBO - but this turned out to be more of a curse than a blessing. There is no way this movie could have gotten a theatrical distribution had it not been attached to HBO. The quality of production was pretty atrocious for the most part, but perhaps that's because it essentially was a made-for-TV movie.

The film was quite static for the most part, and characters only developed to the point of what was necessary to push the plot forward. It is quite unfortunate, as there was a lot of subtext that could have been fleshed out, particularly with Shannon's character, but it was instead minimally hinted at before being swept under the rug for the remainder of the film. Bradbury's characters had so much potential to be toyed with here to the adaptation's advantage, and the end result made for a very boring film.

Even its changes weren't wholly adapted to its modern landscape. Despite the mention of other forms of culture being eliminated, such as film and music, the main emphasis was still on books - and not even many modern books, but mostly classics. While these are still impactful on our society, only to a certain extent, and there is far more material makes up the whole of today's culture. It's also confusing that while opinion of the public is aimed to be erased, there is still some form of social media present where people can comment on and interact about current events. If anything, this shows the director's lack of familiarity with its function. Additionally, emojis are used in place of certain words in books as if they're viable censors, but emojis still work to communicate, defeating the whole purpose of using them in this context. The film could have benefitted from direction by someone with a more well-rounded view of these trends and technologies. 

The strongest part of this film was its actors, and Jordan, Shannon, and Boutella all shined. Any weight that this film had came either from its source text or its performances. There are some who might connect with it, but I wouldn't go as far as to say lives and perspectives will be shifted because of it - my life could have gone on all the same without having seen it. There is merit to the story that is trying to be told, and I'm not denying that. But the key word is here is trying.