I don't know where to start.
I read this book years ago, and it was okay. Not great, but not boring. Easy read, fast. Probably read it in a day. This movie feels like it tried to shove those hours of reading into five minutes.
The pace was hurried. It didn't align with the book. I was put off immediately by a middle-aged teacher moving to the middle of nowhere to teach for a SINGLE SEMESTER while her husband worked on his doctorate? And what's going on with her husband? Why did we need to see their marriage fray in this? Oh wait, we didn't need the marriage at all - if the story would've stuck to the book!
Julia in the book is 23, single, and a recent college grad trying to get her footing with her first full-time teaching job? That makes sense. Naomi enters the book a little older, wiser, and a bit more grizzled, ready to show Julia the ropes of life in this small hamlet. Single Julia trying to meet an equally single Vance - well, there we go.
No crying/screaming divorce phone calls needed. Not a single one.
Ted - what happened to Ted? Ted in the book isn't a major character, but he's the reasonable, level-headed guy who takes care of his friends in the book. He gets a whole single line in the movie.
But Laidlaw, well, I don't even wanna go there. Laidlaw in the book is just a gross, dispicable man whose life didn't get upended by pregnancy like his poor student, Tina - who is long gone in the book. But here we are, focusing on this EXTREMLY problematic relationship, to which one character remarks, "Maybe it's love."
STOP.
The story, as a whole, got bungled. This would make a much better three-act play. In the book, none of the characters overlap, which makes it better. We just get little microscopes into these three different lives and the people around them. It's perfect. But in this movie, everyone overlaps. The kids try to get Julia in to stop Laidlaw -- what?! Horace drags Julia in to stare at his comatose wife (who doesn't exist in the book). What? And for goodness sake WHAT was that scream session on the football field about?!
What is with the fish eye lenses for panning shots that went nowhere?
Why did they keep breaking the fourth wall? If you want to narrate, just narrate the damn thing. The storm tips at the end felt comical for an ending that's supposed to be tragic.
*takes a heavy breath, sighs*
I just didn't like this movie. Not a lot, and not even a little. I think Ed Harris carried his character the best. Henry as Vance was good too, but we didn't get enough of him. I liked the Mitch + friend group the most but they got next to no time other than stalking Laidlaw.
The soundtrack had some good jams, but didn't feel very 80s - which has such a vibe with music on its own, it could've really pulled us into this world a bit more.
This book maybe never should've been a movie. Or at most, a play. But here we are.
عرض المزيد 
