Disappointing Film
Perhaps I would have had a more favorable impression of the movie if I hadn't read the novel first. The movie didn't begin to do justice to the book.
The novel is about Peekay's development into an extraordinary young man, and about the people and events that had a profound influence on that development. The story takes place in the environment of South African Apartheid, but the focus is firmly on Peekay, with Apartheid as a backdrop. The movie turns that relationship around and becomes primarily about Apartheid. Many of the characters and events so important in the novel have been substantially changed or entirely left out of the movie. Doc's character, for instance, is a pale shadow of the hugely important figure he is in the novel, and that's what disappointed me most. The relationship between Peekay and Doc is central to the entire story and I expected the movie to be truer to that focus.
I suppose this is a decent movie to evoke outrage about Apartheid, and the changes to the characters and the story may have seemed necessary to produce that effect in the limited 2 hour period. But if you've read the book and are more interested in the characters created by Bryce Courtenay than the environment in which they find themselves, I think you'll be disappointed.