Our movie watching is flying along at a breakneck pace, which can be frustrating if a particular film requires in depth analysis or a little time to percolate in your brain. But in the case of "A Clockwork Orange" it's a good thing! Neither Alyssa or I particularly wanted to dwell on this one. As a warning against a future dystopian society it is heavy handed at best, and ridiculous at worst, though its central theme does have some pertinence in today's society.
Ultimately the movie tries to follow in the novel's footsteps by asking its audience, "to what point will we sacrifice our free will for the good of society" and in a post-9/11 world, that is a question many people struggle with today. But the way the movie went about it, in contrast to the novel to my recollection, was just so over the top that you couldn't help but feel that ultimately the criminal got exactly what he deserved, side effects and all. I don't know if Alex is meant to be a sympathetic figure, but he certainly doesn't come off that way. I suppose the theme could also be that society clamoring for the defense of irredeemable criminals helps the irredeemable get off easy, but either way the message is muddled and poorly executed. Alyssa HATED the film, shocking, I know, considering its overall message and individual scenes.
I can't really recommend this to anyone, and the author's feelings of the adaptation seem to back that up.
From the novel's Wikipedia page; "The film made it easy for readers of the book to misunderstand what it was about, and the misunderstanding will pursue me till I die."
To sum it up, don't bother with the film, read the book if you'd like an interesting thought experiment. Funny how often that sentence applies!
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