Any film can be enjoyed (or not) on its own terms. But there’s a particular anticipation for a film adapted from a book that you’ve enjoyed, making the disappointment all the more crushing when the end result is, well… thesaurus.com has dozens of alternative words for crap, so take your pick.
When you truly connect with a book, you might begin casting key roles in your head before the film rights have even been sold. The announcement of a film adaptation poses numerous questions for fans. Will Dumbledore look just like you imagined? Yes, if you imagined Richard Harris transitioning into Michael Gambon (and they say that JK Rowling isn’t fond of transitioning). Will 50 Shades of Gray be as enjoyably filthy as the book? This is debatable, although it’s a yes if CGI genitals are your idea of filthy.
Whether the film bastardised the novel beyond recognition, or if a story had no business becoming a film at all, let’s take a look at a few adaptations where you should very much read the book instead.
The Giver
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The 2014 film adaptation of Lois Lowry’s 1993 novel isn’t a giver, but a taker (as in, that’s 97 minutes of your life that you won’t get back). It’s hard to be too critical of the adaptation since it was a labour of love for Jeff Bridges, who both produced and starred in the film. However, to put not too fine a point on it, director Phillip Noyce’s 2014 film is a bit of a bore, with the consequential ideas of Lowry’s text being mostly absent. Lowry’s dystopian world in which human emotion has been suppressed works on the page, but not so much on the screen.
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The Watch
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Before his death in 2015, Terry Pratchett had written 41 Discworld novels (set on a disc-shaped planet atop the backs of four elephants who rode through space on a giant turtle, naturally). Although wildly popular, the series has been spared the cynical attempts to launch a cinematic franchise, with a few TV adaptations being the only real efforts. It’s hard to make the comprehensive world-building of Pratchett’s novels accessible to newcomers, and BBC’s The Watch didn’t succeed.
Fans were alienated by the fact that something so enchantingly unique became a generic steampunk fantasy, with all the tweaks to the source material resulting in something as bland as Coldplay’s greatest hits. As Neil Gaiman put it, the series’ relation to the novel was much like “Batman if he’s now a news reporter in a yellow trench coat with a pet bat.” Stick to Pratchett’s amazing novels, and by the time you’ve read all 41 of them, maybe there will be a decent adaptation to enjoy.
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The Cat in the Hat
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According to a UK survey, a whopping 8% of parents regret having children. If you’re amongst this 8% and this regret has become full-blown resentment, why don’t you make your kids watch 2003’s The Cat in the Hat? It’s less an adaptation than a story including characters from Dr. Seuss’s 1957 masterpiece, and Mike Myers’ prosthetic makeup (as the cat himself) is enough to make the little ones need therapy. Dr. Seuss didn’t so much turn over in his grave as he came back to life specifically to bitch-slap Myers and director Bo Welch. To put it politely, the film is a catastrophe. To put it more accurately would require language that is not permitted in this article. Since you don’t resent your children, perhaps you should treat them to the magic of the Dr. Seuss original.
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The Girl on the Train
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It might have been thought that Paula Hawkins’ 2015 thriller was in good hands when director Tate Taylor signed on to helm the adaptation. After all, Taylor had previously directed White Lady Fixes Racism (better known as The Help) from the novel by Kathryn Stockett to great acclaim. The action was transplanted from the UK to upstate New York, Emily Blunt was cast as the actual girl on the train, and the Hitchcockian intrigue that Hawkins had carefully crafted was thrown out the window. Revelations are clumsily dropped into the story with no foreshadowing (or reason) resulting in a thriller that occasionally becomes an unintentional comedy. The choice is yours: stick with Hawkins’ book and be satisfied, or sacrifice 112 minutes of your time to watch Taylor’s film and be more than a bit frustrated.
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Congo
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In 1993, there was a little film called Jurassic Park, based upon the novel by Michael Crichton, which made a lot of money. Hollywood practically fell over itself to secure the rights to anything and everything Crichton had written (Michael Crichton’s grocery list: coming soon to a cinema near you). Congo (1995) was one of the results of the Crichton blitz, and the film is so bad that it’s kind of good. Where else can you see Laura Linney disemboweling mutant gorillas with a diamond-powered laser? Even though the novel (1980) contained the same extravagances seen in the film, Crichton’s calculated composition makes it all seem less silly than it is. As a pulpy, gloriously ridiculous summer read, Congo ticks all the boxes.
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Golden Girl: The Story of Jessica Savitch
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Jessica Savitch was an American newsreader who rose through the ranks to become the first woman to anchor NBC’s national news. Her success was the result of her own determination and an NBC policy that wanted engaging women with a certain look to anchor their broadcasts, regardless of actual journalistic experience. Savitch’s life was marred by addiction and tragedy, with her mentor and lover Ron Kershaw reportedly physically abusing her. Her first marriage ended in divorce (allegedly due to her drug abuse) and her second husband committed suicide a few months into the marriage. In October 1983, towards the end of her career, Savitch read the news in a manner that was barely coherent, slurring and largely improvised. It was suspected that she was under the influence of drugs, but Savitch blamed a technical malfunction. Shortly over three weeks later, Savitch died in a car accident.
It’s gritty stuff that any performer would be anxious to sink their teeth into. While Alanna Nash’s Golden Girl: The Story of Jessica Savitch (1988) wasn’t a runaway bestseller, anyone who saw Up Close and Personal (1996) after reading the book, was likely to be bewildered. Jessica Savitch had become Tally Atwater (Michelle Pfeiffer), a plucky and ambitious young journalist who hits the big time with the assistance of her non-abusive mentor and lover, Warren Justice (Robert Redford). Cue the montage of Pfeiffer and Redford cavorting on a beach while Celine Dion’s larynx kicks things up a notch with Because You Loved Me (playing in Dolby Stereo at eardrum rupturing levels).
There’s nothing wrong with making a glossy melodrama for adults, but in terms of an adaptation, Up Close and Personal is very far away and impersonal.
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