Books and films

My last post left me feeling like Will Freeman, a character in Nick Hornby's novel, "About a boy". As Will doesn't work, he has to find things to do, and so divides his day into half hour units (breakfast - one unit; taking a bath - two units, etc). I was going to quote his calculations from the book, but when I looked there, it turns out that there is no such monologue. Instead there is a calculation about how cool Will is. So where did the time units come from? Obviously from the film, starring Hugh Grant. *

The film adaptation of "About a boy" was fairly accurate until about two thirds of the way through the book. The two diverge when (in the book) Marcus takes a train journey to Cambridge in order to see his father; he is accompanied by Ellie. On the way, things take a wrong turn.... None of this is in the film, probably because it hinges upon Kurt Cobain, and maybe the film producers couldn't get clearance to use the late Cobain in the film - or maybe they reckoned that the film's audience wouldn't know who KC was. So instead, film viewers got Marcus rapping in the corridors along with the school concert.

"The time traveler's wife" has been made into a film, and I was able to watch it today, courtesy of the Internet. Whilst this adaptation is more faithful that "About a boy" in that it doesn't introduce new material (except for the final scene), it leaves much more out. That's hardly unavoidable, as a quick glance at the book shows: the book is written in the first person (although alternates between Claire and Henry) and has very rich prose, whereas the film naturally is third person, and the special tone of the writing is absent.

It's not a bad film by any means, but it wasn't particularly special. Some of the photography was very good, making it a visual treasure, but some parts seemed to be very obviously filmed against a blue screen. As always, it would be interesting to hear the thoughts of someone who had seen the film without having read the book.

* Edit from 13/10/16: I reread "About a boy" yesterday and came across the time units in chapter 12. "Reading the paper, having a bath, tidying the flat" are all activities requiring one unit.