Friday, March 9, 2012

Book vs Movie

Today, I came across this, which kind of ties in to last week's post, so I thought I would share it with you. I think I am going to use this as my new classification system.

Today's book: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. I'd never heard of the book until the movie came out.  Everyone seemed to be raving about the movie, and I heard good things about the book, too, so I decided to break down and read it. After waiting through the queue on the wait list, I finally got a hold of the book, and I really enjoyed it. One of my favorite things about it was the balanced view of racial relations in the south during the 60's. I know that the negative things tend to get the most attention, but it was nice to get a different perspective, and the writing style was really enjoyable.

Once I'd read the book, I watched the movie, and I must say, they did a really good job. I wasn't expecting it to follow the book exactly, and I think they did a really good job of choosing what to capture in the movie. They were true to the characters and the feeling of the book, which is really important, in my opinion (they being the movie people, whoever all that may be). The casting was well done, and most of the alterations to the plot line were pretty minor. The romance story line was downplayed, but for the movie, I think it worked--it kept the focus on the main story line, and if they'd developed the love story as much as the book did, it wouldn't have worked as well.

The conclusion is, I recommend both, but, being a proponent of books, I definitely wouldn't just go with the movie, because, as good as it is, you will miss out on a lot. So, read the book, treat yourself to the movie, laugh, cry, and enjoy!

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