New ‘David & Lisa’: Unimproved Version

Why would anyone want to do a television remake of the classic 1962 film “David & Lisa”? One reason might be to provide an updated perspective on the tale of two teenagers living in a home for disturbed young people. Another might be to get some new mileage out of a story that was strikingly successful via a low-budget picture that director Frank Perry brought in for under $1 million.

In the case of ABC’s “David & Lisa,” the third entry to arrive under the “Oprah Winfrey Presents” banner, the motivation was probably a mixture of both.

Of new perspective, however, there is virtually none. Although the picture is positioned in the present time, the essential thrust of the story is unchanged. David (Lukas Haas) is placed in the Borders School by his widowed mother virtually as a last resort. Obsessive-compulsive, intellectually brilliant, intensely focused upon death and time, incapable of allowing anyone to touch him, emotionally or physically, he is desperately in need of help. Lisa (Brittany Murphy) is no better off--locked in emotional childhood, revealing disturbing signs of schizophrenia.

The climax of the original story (written by psychiatrist Theodore Isaac Rubin) was based on the essential premise that love, understanding and insight can heal the most serious mental disorders. Appealing as those answers may have been in the confident optimism of the Kennedy era psychological community (“One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” didn’t arrive until the mid-’70s), they don’t quite hold up in the psycho-pharmaceutical-driven environment of the ‘90s. David and Lisa, in a ‘90s approximation of the Borders School, would almost certainly have been dosed out of their behavior patterns by the regular ingestion of psychotropic drugs.

Will the picture nonetheless draw a new audience? Probably, in part because Haas and Murphy are attractive young actors who make the most of the tics and quirks of their characters, in part because of the undeniable appeal of the love-conquers-all, coming-of-age, teenage-angst, Romeo and Juliet plot.

Sidney Poitier, making a rare television appearance, is effective, if occasionally a bit befuddled-looking, as the sympathetic Dr. Jack Miller. And Lloyd Kramer, directing from a script he wrote with Rubin, delivers a well-crafted, low-key production, carefully avoiding the easy temptations of dramatic excess in favor of the more compelling attractions of understatement.

* “David & Lisa” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on ABC. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).