I certainly thought so. Although I haven't seen it in some time, even though I own it, I remember it not really coming close to achieving the same feel as the book. Books usually are quite a bit better but I was particularly let down by this movie. Yet someone I know actually said it was one of their favorite movies even though they have read the book. Just thought I'd ask what others thought.
shareI thought the same. The movie in my opinion is bubblegum compared to the book. I also felt that it focuses to much on the Lisbon girls from seemingly their point of view.
Books are always better than the movie. Everyone knows this. We don't need to hear it repeated.
Love's turned to lust and blood's turned to dust in my heart.
aniikas, I completely agree. I think Sofia Coppola had a significant misunderstanding of the book. She had too much from the girl's point of view, as if the story is a mundane one of the girl's plight. When viewed in that way, the girls and the entire story seem superficial(as the movie comes across as being).
The book is about the girls from the point of view of the boys, how they idealize them and how they seem utterly otherworldly and mysterious. This isn't an after school special about strict parents, depression, and suicide. This is a heightened reality where the sometimes extreme elements(all sisters committing suicide, Lux having sex on the roof, calling the boys over to witness the suicides, etc.) work because it's a surreal, romanticized(in a dark way) story.
It's not supposed to be realistic, and it's supposed to be about something suggestive of things beyond everyday life, there are hints that the girls are in touch with and represent something larger. It's all a dreamy, surreal mystery, like a vivid daydream.
Not necessarily. I agree it is too much from the girl's point of view since they're almost METAPHORIC in the book.
BUT this topic is very cinematic. It lends itself well to a movie. I found this very similar to "Picnic at Hanging Rock", which is better than or at least as good as the book it was based on.
I wouldn't say this is better, but I'd say it's a very good adaptation. Besides comparing a book to a movie is kinda like comparing an opera to painting. . .
"Let be be finale of seem/ The only emperor is the Emperor of Ice Cream"
I wouldn't say this is better, but I'd say it's a very good adaptation.
I don't think that the movie should have less focus on the girls at all, I just think it should have less focus from the girls' points of view. The book is all about the girls, but from the view of the boys, and the small glimpses of them that they are constantly looking for. It is from 'outside' rather than 'inside'. The view inside takes away a lot of the mystery of the girls and makes it more about their mundane situation, which misses the point of the book. In the book, the girls seem more distant and otherworldly.
shareI understand your point of view.
I guess it can also be argued that what we're seeing are the boys' reconstruction of the girls' lives, intermingled with their real-live encounters. If you read the book, the boys (now men) even go back and interview people to try and flesh out the "missing pieces" of what happened.
The book does go into detail about how they obtain snippets of information...and are almost like detectives, piecing together what must be going on behind the walls of that house.
Really, with the exception of the few scenes after their incarceration when no other people are present (although in the book, one of the boys Lux makes love to makes mention of the half-eaten sandwich, Fr. Moody nearly stepped in, still being there), there was very little that wasn't a viable reconstruction.
Even then you could argue that scenes during their phone conversations were more an imaging of what was happening on the other end of the line...or with the record-burning, putting things together from the obvious yelling and ruckus that anyone with neighbors will tell you isn't difficult to do. Also, a lot of the character changes from the book to the movie are done to put at least one of the boys in each of the major scenes.
It should also be mentioned that even the scenes that don't include an outside witness, are things that are mentioned in the book, and seem to come from some sort of source that the boys have tracked down over the ensuing years. These are not scenes that are plucked out of thin air.
I understand your point, but again, we are seeing the girls through the boys' eyes...which includes an elaboration on the multitude of "evidence" they collect, both at the time and retrospectively...from "primary evidence"...to collective personal experiences...to interviews with both willing and reluctant witnesses.
As far as film-making goes, I personally thought it was done well, because you merely have to look at the boards to see how people speculate more on the Lisbon family than the story itself...but obviously others will have their own ideas about whether certain scenes were needed or appropriate.
Anyhow, I might not agree with your opinion, but I respect it.
I enjoyed the book when I read it years ago, but the movie left such a deeper impression on me and I have since rewatched it countless times. I've never once felt like rereading the book.
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