As a first thought, these posts may be quite biased because
I know in my head that a book will always be the victor. Nothing will ever beat
or even come close to the picture you’ve painted in your head through the
description from a writer, so either way you’re going to be somewhat
disappointed by someone else’s idea of what it may look like. Saying that,
there is some films that have come pretty close to what I excepted it to be
visually; The Amazing Spiderman for example – the character portrayal in the
comics and the character brought to life on screen by actor Andrew Garfield
came pretty close in my mind.
I’m
going to continue this post by talking about a specific book/film. Warm Bodies.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I had the misfortune of seeing the film
first (don’t know how I didn’t realise it was a book beforehand, must have been
living under a rock). So I purchased the book and started to read.
The basic story line is similar:
there’s a plague that has turned the human race into ‘corpses/zombies’ apart
from small herds of people that are surviving on very little, and there’s a
zombie names ‘R’ that falls in love with a human and turns back again. Yea,
that’s the same plot, right? But reading into it, it’s so different. So much so
that I was a tad bit disappointed.
I wasn’t disappointed in the
film, I absolutely LOVE the film, think it’s brilliant. I was just disappointed
about how there was so many things in the book of which I would have loved to
have seen come to life. For example, the ‘bonies’ have such a bigger role in
the book. I would have loved to have seen their ‘meeting room’ where they went
around taking polaroid pictures of the remaining civilisation and plastering
them all over the walls (the camera of which in the book: Julie steals. In the
film: Julie finds in an abandoned house); or how they all congregate to a
‘church’ type area within the airport and have a distinct noise/groan and
gathering. These things I would have loved to see, just to see how a director
would have translated them to the screen.
The casting for R, in my opinion,
was perfect. Nicholas Hoult makes the perfect zombie teen and I can definitely
picture him while I’m reading. He’s a fantastic actor and portrayed the role
incredibly well and I think matched the description of the character almost
spot on. But ‘R’ as a character in the book is so much deeper (personality
wise)…he’s not just interested in the girl; he’s battling inner demons, mulling
life over, having constant battles with himself over hurting those around him.
You don’t get that kind of depth in the film. In the film he just simply kills
Perry off and feels a bit bad about it later on when he realised he was Julie’s
boyfriend…but in the book, Perry becomes a big part of R’s subconscious – Perry
is actually kind of vital to the story which I didn’t think he would be after
watching the film.
Moving onto the next character,
Julie. Bloody hell! How deep is she ?! She has such an interesting and
hard-done-by past that you never get into on screen. You find out about her
mom, about her run in’s with drugs, about charging for sex…all sorts. I really
do have a strong and empathetic bond with her character in the book, where as I
thought she was just a bit whiney in the film. The character development in
this book is fantastic – even Nora has a great background story. I really feel
like a lot was cut out and lost about Julie in the film which is a huge shame.
Don’t even get me started on the
ending. Now if the ending in the book was done in film that that would have
been award winning right there. The ending chapters are where things change.
The story line isn’t the same in the slightest (well it is vaguely in that R
becomes human again) but I never would have guessed that the kiss between Julie
and R has an effect on both of their beings, and that Julie’s father breaks
down entirely. I can honestly say that the last half of the book had me gripped
and I found myself reading it whenever I could because there was always new
surprises and twists.
So if I had to choose my
favourite between book and film, in this case I couldn’t really. I like both
for different merits, and I really couldn’t compare due to the amount of
differences between the two. All I can say is that I love the movie and recommend
it to anyone wanting to watch an easy going, heartfelt teen. In contrary wise,
if you’re wanting an emotional, deep and physiological story then I would
HIGHLY recommend the book – I think it’s one of my new favourites.
(after having a non-working
laptop for a few weeks, this post is far later than I planned but I know
exactly what I’m writing about next – Alter Bridge, Shinedown and Halestorm!)
