A Few Thoughts on Adaptations

I’ve alluded to this before, but I have an odd relationships with movie/TV adaptations of books I love. Much like my feelings about movies adapted from stage musicals, I continue to get excited whenever new adaptations are announced, but I’m very, very frequently disappointed (I’ll be honest: I have yet to bring myself to see The Giver or The Goldfinch because I’m so worried that they screwed it up.) Disappointed to varying degrees, to be sure, and every now and then, an adaptation really knocks my socks off, but I find the latter to be true mostly under very specific circumstances.

Scenario 1: I see the movie first. Sometimes a great movie will lead me back to the source it’s based on, either because I saw the movie before I was ready to read the book (the Winona Ryder Little Women,) the movie alerted me to a book I never knew existed (A Single Man,) or the movie sparked my interest in something I’d never really paid much attention to (the Felicity Jones Northanger Abbey, which kickstarted my love affair with Jane Austen works and adaptations.) The Lord of the Rings falls into this category as well. In these instances, because I love the movie before I love the book – sometimes long before – it cements itself in my affections and I’m more equipped to handle departures from the source material. These are cases where I can truly appreciate both for being their own unique thing. I know I’ve said it before, but A Single Man is my absolute prime example of this scenario. The movie is profoundly different from the book, but because I fell in love with the movie first, I was able to keep loving it after I also fell in love with the book.

Scenario 2: I’m not that beholden to the source material. I often find that, the less invested I am in the book, the more willing I am to roll with (or even root for!) changes made in the adaptation. I have no great love for it, so I don’t feel betrayed when this character is interpreted differently, that whole subplot is rearranged, or even the ending goes in an entirely new direction. Crazy Rich Asians is the first film that comes to mind here. I thought the book was fine, wasn’t thrilled about the ending, but I loved the movie, which brought out some neat themes and put its excellent cast to great use. Weirdly enough, the Divergent movies, or at least the first one, would qualify here. Not that I claim Divergent as a movie that I love, but I personally found it to be a decent improvement on a “meh” book. And even though I do enjoy the Harry Potter series quite a bit, I’d throw that one in here too; while I read the books beforehand, I was more invested in the movies than the books at first and didn’t gain a greater appreciation of them until later (it was wild to reread the series last year and see all the subplots I’d completely forgotten about because they were cut out of the movies!)

Scenario 3: I haven’t read the book recently. If it’s a book I’m into, the closer my proximity to having read it, the less forgiving I’m going to be of anyone “messing” with my beloved source material. I first read The Hunger Games while I was working in a school, as part of a class I was interpreting. The teacher showed the movie as soon as they finished the book, and I kind of thought it was trash – I thought the movie sucked all the suspense out of the story, it didn’t show Katniss being as smart as she is, and the costumes didn’t come near to doing Cinna justice. By the time the other movies came out, I’d long since finished the series, and while none of the movies are perfect, I didn’t have nearly the same negative reaction to any of them. Another strong example here is the TV version of A Series of Unfortunate Events. I mean, this is a pretty great adaptation anyway, made with lots of love and devotion and always remaining true to the spirit of the series, but it also veers off in its own direction in major ways. And if I’d just finished a big reread, I’m sure I would’ve taken greater issue with that. But as it was, I was able to just bask in everything great about it.

My big takeaway here is that, for me, at least, an adaptation needs space, either chronological or emotional. I mean, that still doesn’t stop plenty of them from just being bad, but if one is going to succeed with me, it needs room to make its own impression and feel like its own thing. Because, the more I love the book or the fresher the book is in my mind, the less allowances I’ll make for it.