s a regular reader of books, I have long been an admirer of Stephen King’s works. And while many of his novellas have been turned into films, the latest Netflix offering is a story, Mr Harrigan’s Phone. It’s a film by John Lee Hancock, who also directed The Rookie and The Blind Side.

A commendable performance by Donald Sutherland and a consistently engaging one from Jaeden Martell keep Mr Harrigan’s Phone tolerable but, you’re going to want to pass this one.

Cracking the plot, the affluent Mr Harrigan (played by Sutherland) employs a young man, Craig (played by Martell) to read to him because the former’s eyes are growing weak. He is an old school man who doesn’t own a TV or a radio, even if he likes listening to his Country Western tunes in the car every now and then.

The movie hits a high when Craig reads texts like the Heart of Darkness, which opens a new debate for them to discourse. The friendship builds further for Craig while for Harrigan, it is just whiling his time away in old age. He has been known to have stepped on a couple of people before he climbed the corporate ladder to reach the pinnacle of success. He preaches Craig not to be docile. He insists that Craig be cutthroat and decisive, whether it means confronting a bully, or approaching his love interest.

He encourages Craig, he gives him confidence and he gives him some wise, old-age, experienced solace as a sage. While he is at it, he also gives Craig a lottery ticket. When Craig wins $3,000 from his scratch-off gift, he resolves to utilise that money to lead the old man to the iWorld. At first hesitant, Mr Harrigan finally agrees when Craig shows him how business savvy Harrigan can become by staying lucrative and making financial breakthroughs. Soon, Harrigan is found fixed to his phone, allowing Hancock and Sutherland a really eye-rolling speech about the dangers of being constantly hooked to the phone, leaving the realities of life aside.

It may have worked as an anthology horror show rather than a feature film. Stretching a short novella to a full-length feature is a fool’s errand and this one bears the seal of mediocrity, with a graceless pace, poorly developed characters, an absence of concrete plot, dialogue that feels as if it’s been strung together just to elongate it.

This is where the movie gets a tad slow when Harrigan rambles on about how devices will be used as a fodder for rumours and misinformation.

Originally, the movie is better used as a conversation starter about impartiality and authority than anything literal. For instance, when the old man kicks the bucket, Craig puts his new phone in the casket with him. With no spoilers, the boy leaves messages for Harrigan that affect the real world. What could potentially be done with that power?

The visual impact of the movie needs to be a preach-tale for its audience, questioning the limits one can go to, to undo the wrongs of the world. If the old had the same kind of power that the youth do now, there was a high chance that it would’ve been used as a tool for corporate nastiness. This opens the debate as to whether the youth are in a moral dilemma about what to do with all that ever-growing, unchecked power. This is where the film becomes a drag.

Just because something works on paper doesn’t necessarily mean it will be an equally impactful piece of film art. It may have worked as an anthology horror show rather than a feature film. Stretching a short novella to a full-length feature is a fool’s errand and this one bears the seal of mediocrity, with a graceless pace, poorly developed characters, an absence of concrete plot, dialogue that feels as if it’s been strung together just to elongate it. Anything that might initially intrigue you ends up frustrating you instead.

It gave a feeling that a more determined filmmaker could have done a strikingly ambitious job of cementing the same themes and concepts, in a more aesthetically and mindfully pleasing form rather than weaving it into a moral bluster about the overuse of technology. There is a lot of underlying content that could have been taken off as ideas that King has toyed with in his books; if only those had been given to an executor willing to answer the call.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Karachi