PAPILLON: Unnecessary Remake Says Nothing New

Modern remakes will inevitably be looked at in comparison to their predecessors. And oftentimes, unfavorably so, because the new film will add nothing new to the original story. Such a pitfall was seen back in 2016 with Antoine Fuqua‘s The Magnificent Seven (a film which, ironically, is also based on a Steve McQueen-starring original).

Yet, neither Magnificent Seven or this new Papillon could really be considered horrid films. They just don’t do much to either alter or otherwise modernize the originals from which they are based on. As a result, when viewed side by side, it’s the first iterations that will come out on top. In the case of Papillon, the question that kept popping up in my head was: why? Surely there are other movies that need a remake. Papillon, on the other hand, should’ve just been left alone.

Copy/Paste

Papillon takes place in the 1920s. Henri “Papillon” Charrière (Charlie Hunnam) is a safecracker who has recently been falsely accused of murder, and is sent to live out his life sentence in a secluded prison system located on French Guiana. Knowing himself to be innocent, he is determined to escape, though he is quickly told that he needs money in order to be able to do so.

Enter Louis Dega (Rami Malek), a small, weasely man who also happens to be quite rich. Papillon realizes that he could act as bodyguard for Dega, and in exchange, Dega could lend him the money to help escape the prison. What ensues is an attempt to escape, which inevitably goes wrong, followed by seclusion in a solitary cell for two years, only for him to attempt the cycle once again.

Structure-wise, it’s nearly identical to the 1973 Franklin J. Schaffner-directed film. The basic message and sentiment exist across both iterations: Papillon is a determined, free-spirited man, and he’s not going to let this brutal, soul-crushing prison bring him down.

What works in the original film, though, oftentimes doesn’t work nearly as well in Michael Noer‘s version. First of all, there are the two central stars: Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek. Individually, they each have impressive careers, with Hunnam already having quite a few acclaimed films under his belt and Malek a breakout star within the past few years. But here, the two have almost no emotional impact through their performances, not to mention little to no chemistry, especially when compared to both Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman, who played their original roles.

Hunnam especially just doesn’t seem to dive into the role to the same extent that McQueen did. An example is the solitary confinement scene. In the original film, Papillon endures months of suffocating seclusion, which eventually gets even worse when he is put on half rations. By the conclusion, he is a slim ghost of the man he once was. Yet, in the same scene here, Hunnam never gets to that same place. His descent into madness is instead just a slightly vacant look, and you never gain a true sense of the magnitude of what has happened to him.

It would also help if director Michael Noer made Papillon likable from the start. Instead, from the opening scene where we see who he is before he is sent to prison, he is a brash, unsympathetic, and selfish criminal, so as a result it is hard to really get behind his plight.

Changed for the Worse

While Papillon contains a nearly identical structure as the original film, it also doesn’t allow itself much room to breathe. It has become a noticeable trend in recent years that modern films, especially remakes, often pander to their audience, replacing periods of silence with clunky dialogue, and spelling out relationships in ways that non-verbal cues could more successfully do. Rarely is that more prominent than in Papillon.

Let’s circle back, once again, to when Papillon is in solitary confinement. A couple of times, he gets a visit from one of the prison guards, who tells him each time something along the lines of: “what are you trying to live for? Wherever you’re going next, it’s not going to be worth it.” And, as to be expected, wherever he ends up next is in fact worse than where he was before. But what feels unnecessarily tacked on here is the sentiment that the guard’s words are meant to express: that Papillon is a man who is spirited when he really doesn’t have much reason to be. We don’t need to be told this; the film should just show it, such as by not watering down the desperateness of the seclusion scenes themselves. And if dialogue is used, it should be sparingly, which would make it all the more impactful.

One of the most memorable lines of the 1973 Papillon is one that is repeated twice throughout the film by McQueen. In a triumphant voice, shaking his fists to the sky, he shouts: “Hey, you bastards, I’m still here!” In just six words, you gain more of a sense of the indomitable strength of Papillon’s spirit than the entire remake’s worth of dialogue manages to do.

An Exercise in Futility

Both this new film and the original Papillon are based on Charrière’s autobiography, which historians actually believe to be a composite of experiences from multiple people instead of just Papillon’s experiences individually. So, this brings me to my next question: if the original autobiography itself is believed to be mostly fictional, then why did the remake need to be nearly a carbon copy of the 1973 film?

It’s an issue that is representative of the film’s flaws as a whole. By trying to remain indebted to a movie which already worked quite well on its own, and not trying to modernize or otherwise change the events therein, instead the film becomes overshadowed by its predecessor. Papillon could’ve easily reflected more on our current prison system, which, though clearly not as bad as that of French Guinea in the 1920s, is also in need of reform. It could’ve been a truly inspirational triumph of the human spirit type of story, such as the original, or similarly-themed classics such as Cool Hand Luke, but instead it ends up as a slog of a film, with little momentum to keep it going through its over 2-hour length.

Conclusion: Papillon

To conclude, Papillon is a unfortunate reminder that sometimes Hollywood runs out of ideas. By circling back to movies that were big back in the day, and inserting modern stars in place of those old ones, the expected result is of similar success. But, in an age where originality is increasingly more desirable, Papillon had to do something drastically different in order to standout and be worth your time. As it is, though, I wouldn’t bother.

What are your thoughts on Papillon? Did you enjoy it, or did it feel like an unnecessary film to remake?

Papillon was released in theaters on August 24.