I thought it would be fun to see this movie, based on the novel of the same name, because I really loved the novel. It was fun. I really loved this movie. It was very faithful to the novel (the screenplay was written by the novel's author, Jesse Andrews). Not perfectly faithful .. but details don't matter. But it was different, and for me, richer, to see the story with someone else's images.
One of the things I loved about the movie was that it captured the humor of the book. The film parodies that Greg makes with his friend Earl are just hilarious. I laughed out loud several times .. and that's unusual.
One of the things that I loved about the book was that it was anti-dramatic. There's another, better word for what I mean but I can't think of it now. Greg does not fall in love with Rachel, who has leukemia. Greg does not want to be Rachel's friend, and certainly not just because she has a life-threatening illness. Greg flat-out refuses to befriend Rachel until he is coerced by his mother. (Greg's personal approach to surviving high school is just not getting involved with it, or its cliques, or its individuals.) At one point, Greg lashes out at Rachel in blind fury, completely reactive and completely insensitive to Rachel's pain. In other words, it's so much more like real life than books like these often are. And Greg doesn't have a brilliant career as a filmmaker, either.
No comments:
Post a Comment