Carissa Green Reads
I read widely from many genres. Perhaps this blog will feature fewer ratings and reviews, but I certainly intend to write about my reading life - it's the subject I most find myself wanting to talk about.
Currently reading
Notes on Adaptation: Room
I had such high hopes for the film "Room." The book was fantastic; its author, Emma Donoghue, wrote the screenplay herself, and critics raved. They must have been raving mad.
I expected there would be changes - there had to be, when the book is written in the point of view from a precocious five-year-old. But after a reasonably faithful first act, Donoghue takes a knife to her own child and rips it apart. From the escape to the end, it's barely recognizable from the book. And the sad part is, it didn't need to be so drastically different. There was a good story there. It would be possible to open the story up to the journey of all of the characters while STICKING TO THE ORIGINAL STORY. But she didn't.
So many needless changes. And now I get to knit-pick: They even changed details that were important in the book that would be easy to get right in the film: Why was the "brown" pickup changed to red, for instance? No brainer.
I finished the book "Room" feeling gut-punched because of the story; I left the theatre after seeing "Room" gut-punched because the story was gutted.
-cg