Where this film went wrong


Too much of actually following the Script, editing, and quite possibly director. Clearly acting isn't the problem. It's a shame, a lot of juicy content but not quite filtered properly. If only to turn back time. The angles showing character emotion are the only time that we actually feel something and unfortunately that isn't enough. There's also too thick of a story to really get involved because of how rushed the scenes are. This is the type of movie a person can't leave the room, without missing a part of the story. Too much.
Maybe it should have been broken up. The fact is, I should feel really bad about the rape scene, but because i had no connection to the character, I am feeling bad but somewhat disconnected. There are all these movies they are redoing nowadays, and at least half of them don't need to be redone let's be honest. Someone should redo this, because it could ignite fireworks. But it was only a sparkler, because of how oddly edited and focused it was. The story jumps yet is sharp, like someone who is trying to cut you off in bumper to bumper traffic. You sort of shake you head and accept it, yet say to yourself, " really?, that necessary?".

Poignant scenes, which there are many, are not enough to make it good. I repeat REDO.

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completely agree, read this book about a year ago, and saw the movie last night, completely awful, some scenes didnt even need to be brought up but some were not developed at all...., this movie put the nail in the coffin for me that a movie can never do a book justice, and i already knew this, but this book was really solid, and the movie, failed.....

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I've been thinking about why Hotel New Hampshire failed while other films based on Irving's work worked so well.

Irving's novels are complex, with multiple, intricate and interwoven plots. Cider House Rules and Simon Birch (based on A Prayer for Owen Meany) both chose to pare down the story to the central plot only. Only the briefest hints or nods are made at some of the deeper subplots in the novels, and others are eliminated altogether. While avid fans of the novels might find this disappointing, it seems to be the only way to bring Irving to the screen and tell a clear story. The results are poignant and beautiful, but they are really only interpretations of the novel rather than true translations. The World According to Garp reached a bit deeper into the novel's depths, but still eliminated huge chunks in favor of linearity.

In Hotel New Hampshire, they tried to bring in a taste of every part of the novel, and then edit down to a movie-length film. The result was an often nonsensical hodgepodge of ideas. Those who read the novel understood each of the elements, but those who'd never read it were likely completely lost. The question is whether or not HNH could really be made into a simple film. Unlike the others, there almost is no "central line" that can be traced all the way through the story. It seems instead to be made of a dozen slender threads that combine together to create what is in essence a gestalt, wherein the whole is definitely more than the sum of it's parts. Perhaps it could be done as a miniseries, but only in the hands of a very skillful writer. And honestly, maybe it shouldn't be done at all. It's a brilliant novel and, I suspect, it's a story that's best read rather than seen. Even fans of Garp, Simon Birch, and Cider House Rules should try the novels. I think people would be surprised at the richness of those stories and the many beautiful subplots that had to be abandoned for the sake of simplicity.

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Movies are IQ tests. The IMDB boards are each person's opportunity to broadcast their score.

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