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Well, certainly not very much if you go by Mark Steven Johnson. Alas, your scepticism is justified. The writer-director's much-compromised Simon Birch has veered so drastically from the original temper of novelist Irving's best-selling book that the author has all but disavowed the film. Instead of a "based-on" to describe the source material, the credits must inform that Simon Birch is only "suggested by" the novel.
Whatever his name, he is played by 3-foot-eleven-inch newcomer, Ian Michael Smith, a real-life 11-year-old noticeably suffering from a growth-hampering disease (in the book, Owen's curiously small size is exotic, not sickly). It is related that the title character is so little at birth that his arrival goes virtually unnoticed, especially by his surprised mom, who happens to painlessly deliver him as a consequence of sneezing. The doctors say he won't make it through the night. Then they inform he won't make it through the week. Fast-forward twelve years.
Of course, the smallest child ever born at New Hampshire's Gravestown Hospital lives to be the marvellously unlikely hero of the tale. Certain that God has a grand plan for him, Simon forever declares that he is bound for glory. His parents regard him with a deadpan lack of interest that barely masks their disdain. But, like the miracle of his survival, Simon has unshakeable faith.
The argumentative twelve year-old's egocentricism has the unfortunate effect of annoying some folks. Particularly rankled by Simon's spiritual pluck and his penchant for debunking authority is David Strathairn as the rigid Reverend Russell. Also at her wit's end at the hands of this enfant philosopher is his teacher, Miss Leavey (Jan Hooks). When typecast Simon portrays the baby Jesus at a humorously ill-fated Christmas pageant-turned-fiasco, her worst fears are realised.
Happily, the vertically-challenged youth haas two very loving allies wit equally eccentric pedigrees, like best friend Joe and his mother, Rebecca Wentworth. Looking like a young Ava Gardner, Ashley Judd imbues Rebecca with an angelic presence; it complements the pedestal Simon has put her on. She in turn functions as the Lilliputian's surrogate Mom.
Miss Wentworth never did wed, and you know what that makes Joe, played by Joseph Mazzello (Jurassic Park). He has his persona rooted in the perplexing fact that Mom met Dad-to-be on the Boston-to-Maine, but never bothered to tell anyone, including him, who the fellow was. When the boys aren't speculating just exactly how Simon will realise his heroic destiny, they direct their efforts to the matter of Joe's elusive paternity. Every fellow in town is a suspect.
The alternately funny and sad quest becomes an obsession. Yet the manhunt must take a back seat to the cataclysmic interjection of two very tragic events -- Irving's signature method of mixing offbeat plot mechanisms with his story-by-collision style. In the filmmaker's hands, the literary device doesn't quite achieve the aura of watershed importance that marks the New England author's specific brand of neo-gothic wackiness. Instead, Johnson directs with a more conformist goal, sculpting the story's oddball events into a fairly typical coming-of-age summer set in a typically Rockwellian town. The script is chock-full of those stock learning-experience moments that both change and prove everything.
It figures then that the tale's more trenchant notions are, more often than not, artlessly delivered in very conventional terms. Thus, even with a fairly decent cast and enough warm fuzziness to clothe a thousand Beanie Babies, in the final analysis Simon Birch is manipulative: time to laugh, time to cry, time to learn a life lesson -- all accompanied by '60s-era pop hits delivered with the poetic subtlety of a sledgehammer.
In other words, it all dumbs down to lo-cal Irving for the masses. An antithetical idea if ever there was one. If the producers were truly forthcoming, in addition to the "suggested by" ploy, the credits would proclaim thusly: "We paid John Irving a ton to make this film, so we couldn't chance a faithful adaptation that might only play to a handful of elitists at a few cosmopolitan art houses. And what do you need such intellectual stuff for anyway? It'll just make you miserable....all that death and redemption garbage. So here. Enjoy! We got mainstream Mark Steven Johnson (Grumpy Old Men) to transpose the whole deal. Got rid of all those hard, messianic concepts that make people crazy. Now everyone in the family can understand it."
The fantasy disclaimer might also add that since no one thus far has satisfactorily translated Irving's works, why start now? But give them credit for restraint. At least they didn't attempt a merchandise tie-in with a fast food chain. Then they'd have to decide whether to name the very little plastic character you get with a lucky meal Owen Meany or Simon Birch.
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