Five GREAT books adapted into five DISAPPOINTING films

17th November 2018

Do you like it when a book you’ve really enjoyed reading becomes a great film too? Or would you like the original art form to be untainted by the big screen? Or which films have you enjoyed watching that have been adapted from books that you haven’t already read? Do you like to read the ‘book of the film‘ first, or are you happier seeing the book brought to life, before going back to read the story that inspired a movie? In the second of our series, we look at five GREAT BOOKS adapted into five DISAPPOINTING FILMS – it doesn’t always work well…

1. Bonfire of the Vanities – set in NEW YORK

BOOK – by Tom Wolfe

He wasn’t ageing: he was growing up.

This pyrotechnic satire of 1980s New York wasn’t just Wolfe’s best book, it was the best bestselling fiction debut of the decade, a miraculously realistic study of an unbelievably status-mad society, from the fiery combatants of the South Bronx to the bubbling scum at the top of Wall Street.

Sherman McCoy, a farcically arrogant investment banker (dubbed a “Master of the Universe,” Wolfe’s brilliant metaphorical co-opting of a then-important toy for boys), hits a black guy in the Bronx with his Mercedes and runs right into a nightmare peopled by vicious mistresses, thin wives like “social x-rays,” slime-bag politicos, tabloid hacks, and Dantesque denizens of the “justice” system. If the Coen and Marx brothers together dramatized The Great Gatsby, Wolfe’s Bonfire would probably be funnier.

FILM – released in 1990. Nominated for 5 Razzie Awards. Winner of the Worst Picture Award at The Stinkers. Directed by Brian De Palma. Starring Tom Hanks, Bruce Willis & Melanie Griffith.

Financial “Master of the Universe” Sherman McCoy sees his life unravel when his mistress Maria Ruskin hits a black boy with his car. When yellow journalist Peter Fallow enflames public opinion with a series of distorted tabloid articles on the accident, the case is seized upon by opportunists like Reverend Bacon and mayoral candidate D.A. Abe Weiss.

A lesson in how to turn a great novel of its era into a terrible movie.

2. The Lovely Bones – set in PENNSYLVANIA

BOOK – by Alice Sebold

On her way home from school on a snowy December day, 14-year-old Susie Salmon is lured into a cornfield and brutally raped and murdered, the latest victim of a serial killer.

The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold’s haunting and heartbreaking debut novel, unfolds from heaven, where “life is a perpetual yesterday” and where Susie narrates and keeps watch over her grieving family and friends, as well as her brazen killer and the sad detective working on her case.

FILM – released in 2009. Directed by Peter Jackson. Starring Saoirse Ronan, Mark Wahlberg & Rachel Weisz.

The film centres on a young girl who has been murdered and watches over her family – and her killer – from purgatory. She must weigh her desire for vengeance against her desire for her family to heal.

A very disappointing adaptation of a well-received debut novel.

3. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – set in KEFALONIA (CEPHALONIA)

BOOK – by Louis de Bernieres

OK, so maybe this wasn’t a GREAT book, but it was a best-seller that was betrayed by its flimsy cinematic adaptation.

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin is set in the early days of the second world war, before Benito Mussolini invaded Greece. Dr Iannis practices medicine on the island of Cephalonia, accompanied by his daughter, Pelagia, to whom he imparts much of his healing art.

Even when the Italians do invade, life isn’t so bad…..at first anyway. The officer in command of the Italian garrison is the cultured Captain Antonio Corelli, who responds to a Nazi greeting of “Heil Hitler” with his own “Heil Puccini”, and whose most precious possession is his mandolin.

It isn’t long before Corelli and Pelagia are involved in a heated affair–despite her engagement to a young fisherman, Mandras, who has gone off to join Greek partisans. Love is complicated enough in wartime, even when the lovers are on the same side. And for Corelli and Pelagia, it becomes increasingly difficult to negotiate the minefield of allegiances, both personal and political, as all around them atrocities mount, former friends become enemies and the ugliness of war infects everyone it touches.

FILM – released in 2001. Directed by John Madden. Winner of two Stinkers Bad Movies Awards. Starring Nicolas Cage, Penelope Cruz & John Hurt.

In 1941, Italy allies with Germany and ruthlessly conquers the much weaker country of Greece. On a remote Greek island, an Italian artillery garrison is established to maintain order.

One Italian officer, Captain Corelli, adopts an attitude of mutual co-existence with the Greeks and engages in such activities as music festivals and courting the daughter of a local doctor.

In 1943, however, after Italy surrenders to the Allies and changes sides in the war, Captain Corelli must defend the Greek island against a German invasion.

4. The Great Gatsby – set in LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK

BOOK – by F. Scott Fitzgerald

1920s, Long Island. In part a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby’s quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying but extremely rich Tom Buchanan.

After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means–and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. “Her voice is full of money,” Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel’s more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy’s patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbour Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout.

A classic novel, but adapted – twice – into disappointing films.

FILM – released in 1974. Directed by Jack Clayton. Starring Robert Redford, Mia Farrow & Bruce Dern.

Nick Carraway, a young Midwesterner now living on Long Island, finds himself fascinated by the mysterious past and lavish lifestyle of his neighbor, the nouveau riche Jay Gatsby. He is drawn into Gatsby’s circle, becoming a witness to obsession and tragedy.

FILM  – released in 2013. Directed by Baz Luhmann. Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan & Joel Edgerton.

An adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Long Island-set novel, where Midwesterner Nick Carraway is lured into the lavish world of his neighbor, Jay Gatsby. Soon enough, however, Carraway will see through the cracks of Gatsby’s nouveau riche existence, where obsession, madness, and tragedy await.

5. The Kite Runner – set in KABUL & SAN FRANCISCO

The Kite Runner of Khaled Hosseini’s deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land.

Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir’s closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with “a face like a Chinese doll” was the son of Amir’s father’s servant and a member of Afghanistan’s despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul’s annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys.

Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir’s equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth.

The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah’s 40-year reign and traces the country’s fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan’s orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling.

FILM – released in 2007. Directed by Marc Forster. Starring Khalid Abdalla, Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada & Atossa Leoni

In 1970s Afghanistan, the Pushtun boy Amir and the Hazara boy Hassan, who is his loyal friend and son of their Hazara servant Ali, are raised together in Amir’s father house, playing and kiting on the streets of a peaceful Kabul. Amir feels that his wise and good father Baba blames him for the death of his mother in the delivery, and also that his father loves and prefers Hassan to him. In return, Amir feels a great respect for his father’s best friend Rahim Khan, who supports his intention to become a writer.

After Amir winning a competition of kiting, Hassan runs to bring a kite to Amir, but he is beaten and raped by the brutal Assef in an empty street to protect Amir’s kite; the coward Amir witness the assault but does not help the loyal Hassam. On the day after his birthday party, Amir hides his new watch in Hassam’s bed to frame the boy as a thief and force his father to fire Ali, releasing his conscience from recalling his cowardice and betrayal.

In 1979, the Russians invade Afghanistan and Baba and Amir escape to Pakistan. In 1988, they have a simple life in Fremont, California, when Amir graduates in a public college for the pride and joy of Baba. Later Amir meets his countrywoman Soraya and they get married. In 2000, after the death of Baba, Amir is a famous novelist and receives a phone call from the terminally ill Rahim Khan, who discloses secrets about his family, forcing Amir to return to Peshawar, in Pakistan, on a journey of redemption.

Other posts in our BOOKS adapted into FILMS series:

Five GREAT books adapted into five GREAT films

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