Movie Review: WONDER BOYS

Well, they stayed remarkably true to the book (with minor excisions to keep the running time down), but for all its faithfulness this adaptation fell as flat as a pompadour in the rain.

I will be fair and say that adapting the book is not an easy task: although the plot of the novel is easily translated to the screen, the heart of the story is much trickier to get at. The book is narrated by the main character, which lets us into his mind and serves the story well. The movie is also narrated by the main character, which lets us into his mind and ruins the whole thing. A narrator on the page can say almost anything and the reader will go along with him; on the screen, however--out loud--the same words will come across as cliche and trite. (It doesn't help that every line of dialogue added by screenwriter Steve Kloves is cliche and trite.) Not only that, but the film is sentimental in a way that the book is not, and in the last ten minutes the pithy little life lessons come so fast and so sugary that I honestly thought I might puke.

Read the book, avoid the movie.