Reading Copy Book Blog

Over the last two weekends I had opportunity to watch three films adapted from books which were, in their own rights, excellent. The movie versions? More miss than hit, sadly. Read on!

The first was Dave Eggers’ and Spike Jonzes’ adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are, which….wasn’t. The original children’s book was very, very short, very art-heavy, and while it explored feelings of grumpiness, bad-moodery, and sadness in kids, and how those feelings can make a child act out and then regret it, it was largely a book of adventure, with clear lines drawn between fantasy and reality (and a happy ending - his supper was still hot!).

I seem to be largely alone here (most of the people I know really liked the film), but I didn’t much care for the movie, at least not in any relation to the book at all. As a standalone effort it was better, but still had its problems. First - it should be made clear that this is not a movie for children. This is a movie for hipster adults who USED to be children, and read the book back then. It’s actually an adaptation of a (much) different book, called simply The Wild Things, by Dave Eggers. I’ve just read the fur-covered edition, which was a gorgeous treat, and I actually quite enjoyed it.

But without reading this new edition, and having that as a context, moviegoers may be sorely disappointed and let down when attending the film. We saw a Saturday matinee, and the theater was filled with the baffled, restless and disappointed sounds of children’s voices as they asked “Why’s he so angry?” “Where’s he going?” and “Why’d he do that?”. The film was filled with adult concepts of isolation and futility that no kid should be burdened with until unavoidable. It was obscure and full of metaphor and heavy symbolism, and even the really adventurous scenes that were reminiscent of the (original) book were still tainted with it. It CAN be very lonely and bewildering being a child. But I felt like rather than approach that truth from a point of view relatable to children, the filmmakers instead weighed the film down with such complexity as to make it inaccessible to kids, who I thought (perhaps mistakenly) were the intended audience. Points for an adorable kid, a perfect wolf costume, and absolutely amazing design and effects on the wild things, a decent soundtrack, and as-always strong acting by Catherine Keener, but this one is a renter at best for me. 6/10

The second film, also disappointing, was The Men Who Stare at Goats, from Jon Ronson’s book of the same name. The thing is, much of this story is true. The government and military really tried psychic warfare, really sanctioned the secret training of psychic operatives, really conducted many of the ridiculous experiments pictured here. That should be - and would have been - ludicrous enough, and I was hoping for a more a factual, in-depth look at that side of things, especially with such a fantastic cast (Kevin Spacey, George Clooney, Jeff Bridges, all together?! YES!) to support it. But all attempts at subtlety or letting the work speak for itself went right out the window here. Instead of allowing an already wonderfully bizarre story to be enough, there were instead over-the-top acid trips, a lot of yuk-yuk throwaway jokes, and the kind of humour sequences that could have been described with “and then hilarity ensued!”. Mad-capped antics instead of what could have been a really excellent film. I feel like it was something of a waste of an incredible story, very talented actors, and the potential for a good thing. Puzzlingly, the film also includes a scene ending in a soldier’s suicide (I’m not sure whether this actually occurred or was a fictional addition) and portrayed it as a HILARIOUS WHOOPSIE!

Neither myself nor the people I went with - and we were all looking forward to it - were impressed. I’d give it a 5/10, personally, and that almost feels too generous - but I was just so happy to see Jeff Bridges.

An example of a nonfiction story of ridiculousness translated WELL into motion picture would be The Informant! from the book by Kurt Eichenwald, a recent - and always welcome - directorial effort from Steven Soderbergh. Informant! delivered entirely, from a compelling, believable and understated performance by Matt Damon, to absolutely brilliant script-editing, resulting in a subtly funny, escalatingly complicated web of lies and deceit, reminscent of William H. Macy’s fumblings in Fargo. One of the funniest parts of the film is the ongoing inner monologue and musings of the main character, which worked beautifully on the big screen. The story is clear, despite being complex, and while it’s very funny, it doesn’t resort to antics or fart jokes to get there. None of the subtlety or wit of the book is lost. I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend. 8.5/10

The next ones I’m excited to see are the film adaptations of Precious, (from the novel Push, by Sapphire) Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox, and The Lovely Bones. I remain cautiously optimistic. See you at the movies, or on the shelves.