…is a prime example of why one should read the books first before watching the movie adaptation.
I first saw the 2011 Lasse Hallstrom film a year after it was released, during a lazy Saturday evening showing on HBO. While I admit that I may not be the world’s biggest Ewan McGregor fan, I can say with certainty that I am definitely in the top five. At first my reaction was to be mind-boggled because I had somehow missed a Ewan McGregor movie. It was just inexcusable because I had been working for a number of years already; gone were the days of me being a penniless student reduced to renting videos or downloading illegal copies from the internet.
After the initial reaction had faded, I quickly became engrossed in the story, which, admittedly, was just pure fluff. But the treatment of the movie was light enough that I didn’t really mind. Plus, Ewan McGregor had crazy chemistry with Emily Blunt – whose performance as a nice, grounded career woman (as opposed to her vapid role in The Devil Wears Prada) shocked me. It was a movie that was so very easy to fall in love with because it had all of the formulaic elements: the haughty but handsome leading man who didn’t know that he was stuck in a rut, the life changing yet ridiculous plot device with unending supply to money, the beautiful love interest, and the inevitable character transformation of the lead where he finds out what’s really important in the world. I especially liked how they handled the love story because it stayed true to the gentle nature of the film. There were no crazy airport sequences, no death defying proclamations of love; only quiet touches and shy smiles that spoke volumes.
Late last year, by some sort of a miracle, I was able to get my hands on a copy of the book that the movie was based on. Written by Paul Torday and published sometime in 2007, the novel has won a lot of acclamations because of the pure wit with which it was written. I started reading it early this year but only got around to finishing it during the long Holy Week break. I appreciated the fact that the book was written in a different format because I can only imagine how difficult it was to translate a novel full of e-mail exchanges, journal entries and correspondences to film. At first the book started out in the same tone as the movie – witty and charmingly British. Except for a few noticeable changes – Peter Maxwell becomes a woman in the movie, among other things – I really thought that the movie was a direct adaptation because the beginning of the novel and the film felt the same.
It wasn’t until I was a few pages away from the end did I realize that the filmmakers drastically changed the mutilated ending of the book. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that the novel ended in such a tragedy (or tragedies, depending on where you’re looking) because the premise was so light. Okay, fine, the book was a satirical look on how the government and the media spins stories for their own benefit but wow, they killed off two of the biggest players in the story. Obviously the fact that Harriet and Alfred didn’t end up together in the book grates on my nerves but as far as character development goes, I find that to be a sucky move. There was no justification or payoff of what had happened in the Yemeni mountains, which basically reduces these two charming characters – who have undergone transformations of their own – to assholes who couldn’t keep it inside their pants.
My main problem with the book was the ending. It was abrupt and to me it felt like the author just lost interest in telling the story so he decided to leave it at where he left it. I generally dislike open endings but this one was particularly loathsome to me because aside from the jabs at the government, very little else is accomplished. Almost everybody ends up in a more miserable place than they started with. Was that the point?
I keep thinking that if I had read the book before I saw the movie, would I hate the changes? I seriously can’t imagine that being the case. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is one of the very rare examples where the filmmaker’s decisions to change the ending of the book was for the betterment of the story.
Have you read the book or seen the movie? What are your thoughts? Can you think of other book to film adaptations where the movie was the better of the two?
