Books Vs Films - Warm Bodies

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!)