I LOVE Alfonso Cuarón’s sci-fi action movie Children of Men. I’ve watched maybe six times and every time, the ending always almost brings me to tears. So when I learned it was adapted from P.D. James’ book of the same name, it was a no-brainer deciding what my next book would be.
After finishing the book, it wasn’t difficult to reach to the conclusion that I enjoyed the movie better.
While James’ book gives a more in-depth look at how human infertility and humanity’s slow death march towards extinction affects the sexual dynamic between men and women and almost demented ways humans try to cope with a world without children or a race of dead men walking, I feel the book dedicates WAY too much time describing the failing of human civilization and the Regrets and guilt of Theo Faron. It’s not even until after 2/3 through the book where it feels like the plot and story are properly paced and stuff of consequence actually begin to happen.
The film’s adaptation by, comparison, feels consistent in its pacing and the world building and woe-is-mes of Theo feel more compact a take up less of the audience’s time.
What books do you feel were worse than its film adaptation and why?
If I understood Taika Waititi correctly, the inspiration for him adapting goes like this: His mom had read the book and recommended it to him. The way she described it to him, he couldn’t picture it any way other than as a comedy or at least with a very heavy comedic tone. When he read it, he essentially thought that the version he’d gotten from his mom would make a better story so he decided to adapt it the way he did
Weirdly, this is almost the fake plot of The Princess Bride book, where Goldman claims he adapted it from a book read to him, that he later discovers was ‘edited’ by the parent who read it to him.
I read an interview where he said he was having a hard time making it funny until he decided to add Hitler, and from there it just worked. Such an odd comment but absolutely true. Having a laughable Hitler made the whole thing just the right kind of absurd.