Miscasting + misdirecting + unfilmable novel = utter futility

I put off watching this until I could re-read the novel first. It was my favorite book 20 years ago, but this time around I sort of wondered why I loved it so much between the ages of 18-23. Still, I found Kerouac's prose bracing, even though he's not so good at overall storytelling.

Anyway, I watched the movie last night. So boring and utterly lacking the spirit of the book. The three primary problems are:

the director's weird agenda to restore a ton of sex scenes
the reduction of Sal Paradise from the main character to an expressionless bystander
the complete miscasting and misinterpretation of the character of Dean.

First, while I don't have a problem with any of the sex scenes, per se, including them in the movie meant less time for the rest of narrative, which was already underdeveloped. This is also a problem in the book, to an extent, but Salles seemed to have no idea what story he was telling, and after a while it seemed like his only motivation for making this was to stuff it full of sex scenes. They didn't make it a better movie, so what was the point? Pushing boundaries? Pointless.

Second, Sal is the narrator of the book. He is a character who is hungry to experience the world the way Dean does. He is an ecstatic, fascinated, lively character who sets out on a series of adventures. There's also something about him that attracts Dean. But the Sal in this movie was dour and depressed. He never seemed thrilled by his experiences, he never does anything. His relationship with Terry is marginalized. And the actor was incredibly uncharismatic. There was no sense of wonder from him, at all.

Finally, I've seen Garret Hedlund in one other movie, the awful Country Strong. I actually liked him in that. I have no problem with his acting in general. But he was miscast. He is a deliberate, laconic actor. Dean is supposed to be a wild ball of manic energy who does not stop to consider the ways he is hurting the people in his life. He is oblivious to it. Maybe that's why he is manic -- to protect himself from being considerate. He is a child on a permananet sugar rush. However, only once or twice in the entire movie do we see a slightly manic Dean. The reason he comes off more like a major dick in the movie is because he is too aware, too slow, too in-control. It is a 100% change from the book. There is nothing intoxicating about his presence, no explanation for why he keeps attracting the people who he hurts. He is supposed to be the mad one who burns like a fabulous roman candle and explodes across the sky. When you remove that facade, he is just a douche, and not a very fun one to watch.

Salles totally lost the sense of wonder in the book, the excitement about life and experience. The hunger to experience life in its most indigent stages that defines the "beat" movement. This is not an easy book to adapt, and I don't think he knows what his movie was about, because it didn't add up to anything.