The Outsiders
Author: Lucy
From: Northampton, United Kingdom
Age: 15
Date: 19th Jan 2005, 4:16 PM
Rating: 5
Comment:
Title: The Outsiders
This is an excellent coming of age story by S.E Hinton who wrote this book at just 17. In 1983 it was made into a hit film starring Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise and many others. I will be reviewing both now.
The Outsiders is mainly about the social division in 1960s Tulsa between the 'Socs' aka the Socials, the rich teenagers living on the West side who have 'all the breaks' and the 'Greasers' the poorer youths who live on the East side and don't have life as easy. This is coveyed well with the powerful message that things are bad everywhere and that divisions and fights due to these are pointless, one of my favourite quotes showing this is said by Randy Anderson:
'It doesn't matter....Greasers will still be Greasers and Socs will still be Socs.'
The main plot of the story however follows Ponyboy Curtis, a 14 year old Greaser who's family is under great strain since the death of their parents meaning his elder brother's Soda-Pop and Darry have had to take extra work and in Soda's case drop out of school. Since then he's drifted apart from Darry and is at risk of being put in crae at any time. Anyway one night after hanging out with some of his friends; Two-Bit, a Mickey Mouse obsessed 18 year old who is pretty amusing, Johnny; a troubled 16 year old with abusive parents and of course Dallas aka Dally, the wisened hood who seems to be dead inside and to not know there is still good in the world. After a fight at home for coming in late Ponyboy and Johnny get into a fight with disasterous consequences for both of them forcing them into a spiral of events that will change Ponyboy's life forever.
This is a rather bittersweet book with strong messages and characters you simply fall in love with.
The 1983 film stays close to the book however misses out some key things, particularly the jumping and the start and events towards the end. Matt Dillon stole the film for sure as Dallas with great dialogue and acting, he delivers some of my favourite lines such as:
'Don't get wise....I don't like little kids-I just don't like them.'
C. Thomas Howell does well as Ponyboy as does Patrick Swayze as Darry, Tom Cruise is okay as Steve Randle as if Ralpha Macchio as Johnny and Diana Lane is very good as Cherry.
The other show stealers for me were Rob Lowe as Soda-Pop though not nearly in it enough compared to the book, the whole Sandy story was left out. Also Emilio Estevez as Two-Bit was great, he had the perfect characterisation of his character and was just right.
Some more great quotes were:
'You wanna know what a greaser is? White trash with long greasey hair.'
'You wanna know what a Soc is? White trash with mustangs and madras.'
and many more. In summary a 10/10, read it and watch it, it's worth it.
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