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?
I had to ctrl+F to find this one, but holy shit. This isn’t a case of the movie being great, and the book being decent or so-so – this book is downright terrible.
I walked away from reading this one feeling angry that someone could write such a lousy novel and then successfully option it and see it turned into a masterpiece film of the same name. I’ve read interviews w/ the author though, and he seems like a nice guy, so that resentment was tempered a bit.
On a side note, I haven’t seen Sideways mentioned here so I’ll add it. The book is actually a good read (other than the bad first chapter that the movie thankfully skips past), but the movie is superior.