5 Film Adaptations That Are Better Than Their Books.
After tearing through each Harry Potter book in secondary school, I awaited their films, impatient to relive my experience and have my imagination corroborated. The faithful day arriving, popcorn in hand, I would watch and scrutinise every scene, pitting them against my mental reel of preserved, self-directed cinema. If the film deviated from my teenage imaginings — whether through scene omissions, casting choices, set design, direction, or the repurposing or amalgamation of characters — I would irrevocably dismiss it. A friend expressing an interest in watching the same film, my lips would thin, stretch, and part with ‘the book is better’; simultaneously halting the pleasantries and flexing my intellectual superiority.
My hypercritical limbs have since grown tentacles; they rebuff film adaptations of beloved books, banishing them prematurely as inferior to their source materials. As an avid reader, it is natural that I hold still in memory the books I have read — the days, hours, and months invested inextricably congeal pages to my identity.
A reader assumes absolute ownership of a story’s manifestation in other mediums, insisting that their ideas be the singular avenue on which adaptations must unfold. Yet, some film adaptations defy our silent demands and surprise us, ushering familiar stories down freshly exhumed alleys, taking us down sub-paths in books we thought conquered. And occasionally, the stars aligning — when we are unsuspecting — screenwriters and directors can turn the Ouija dial of our minds to cast a delightful concoction of emotions, forever etching their renditions in our minds.
- Call me by Your Name (Film) 2017
Holidaying, two strangers — Oliver and Elio — in ‘Call Me By Your Name,’ pass their balmy Italian days ignoring each other, managing to evade when the proximity of sitting opposite each other made doing so an impressive feat. Even when a breakfast table, set in the middle of their countryside garden, roped in the sun and lit itself ablaze, and the verdant walls of olive and peach leaves shook with the song and feathers of Mediterranean birds, perfunctory exchanges were all the men mustered. So, it is fair to assume that nature thought them insufferable. As if cursed, lust and love find them just as Oliver’s departure drives irrevocably close, threatening to end their discovery. Here, the director, Luca Guadagnino and James Francis Ivory skilfully syphon all the best parts of the 256-page book to the screen, ridding themselves of the many — frankly, uninteresting events that made it to the published novel. I intend by no means to attenuate Andre Aciman’s immense talent. It is unknown to many that the beloved monologue performed by Michael Stuhlbarg, who plays Elio’s father, appears verbatim in the book; not a comma added or removed. For this, Andre Aciman deserves credit for such an astute insight into humanity — of love and its plight. Ivory and Guadagnino’s decision to keep Stuhlbarg’s now-famous monologue was a shrewd call, one that landed Ivory the Academy Award for the Best Adapted Screenplay.
2. Interview With The Vampire (TV series) 2022, 2024
During winter 2022, over the Christmas holiday, I binge-watched this show without having read the book nor seen the 1994 film starring Brad Pitt. Without any expectations, the ultimate prize would be easily taken by this TV show adaptation of Anne Rice’s famous novel. Two episodes in, I was swept along by Lestat and Louis de Pointe du Lac’s — lack of a better term — toxic love. From the dialogue, direction, costume, and set design, a meticulous hand wove through each episode; its presence palpable. Captivated, I opened its source material. I was parched for an amplified, intense version of what I had just enjoyed, only for the 342-page novel to admit defeat, nudging me back to the TV series — the only show I’ve ever rewatched.
3. Dune. (Film) 2021
Known as a groundbreaking science fiction novel, the genre and its lovers are indebted to Dune’s author, Frank Herbert. Dune’s world-building is impressive; it is evident in its unrelenting 896 pages that much thought, time, and effort were the foundation and blocks that Herbert painstakingly harnessed in writing Dune. The enormity of its feat is underscored by the number of attempts at its screen adaptation. Like the acrid environment in which Dune is set, taking on the task of adapting Dune is not for the faint of heart. In 2016, Denis Villeneuve and Legendary Entertainment set on a five-year journey to bring Dune to our screens. The result is the 2021 film starring Timothee Chalamet, Zendaya, Oscar Isaac and Javier Bardem — to name a few. The deep browns of the landscape, ominous blacks of ships and interminably deep blue eyes of its characters, not to forget the leering soundtrack, make the latest attempt at Dune a successful one, one that was a delight to watch. A film that supplants its book, rendering the source material obsolete.
4. Pride and Prejudice (Film) 2005
Jane Austen needs no introduction, for her books have been on — if not all — most English students’ to-read list. Austen’s deft control of the pen is not debatable here, but I assure anyone who has not read it that watching the 2005 film starring Keira Knightley and Succession’s Matthew Macfadyen will more than suffice. The film, with its screenplay by Joe Wright (also its director), Deborah Moggach and actress Emma Thompson, brilliantly captures the book’s era and the lives of its characters, their dynamics in a way I believe would’ve satisfied Austen.
5. Never Let me go (Film) 2010
The Man Booker Prize, Arthur C. Clarke Award, National Book Critics Circle Award, and ALA Alex Award are all accolades the novel has either won or been nominated for. Time Magazine ranked ‘Never Let Me Go’ among its 100 Best English-language novels published since 1923 — the beginning of TIME. Yet, as I sit here trying to decide on a position to place this book, number 1—contrary to how my list has gone thus far—would hold a different meaning for this book: 1, indicating the most work implemented to turn a bad book into a good film — or, as I have placed it, number 5, representing a tangential book with an equally boring narrator but a good film adaptation. I wish I had watched the film first; perhaps I might have gone on an emotional ride.
