Am i the only person who thought that although his character wrote poetry and had a computer program with girls information on it, he was pretty much just a normal square guy who you see everyday with a hot girl. Sure her old boyfriend was much worse, but really neither of them had not much to offer so rachel had to pick the best of the two
shareBut in the end he still couldn't hang on to her. The issue was that Dexter repeatedly tried to be something he wasn't - and in the end Rachel saw through him because she was playing by the same rules as him (i.e., lying about herself and her life), as she quoted "it's all bulls**t - and you're not the only one who can do it"
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Interesting point there!
shareI felt bad for Deforest. He was smarmy but he was at the root a good, successful guy, and for cold hearted aloof Rachel to get involved with the self-centered head case Charles Highway made me hate her. Ione Skye played Rachel in such a distant Kubrick-ish manner that you never really understand what she's thinking, if she's thinking at all.
shareBut DeForest was a smug, conceited control freak who wasn't content unless he was running everything in Rachel's life. He wasn't particularly "successful" either - if you read the book by Martin Amis you learn that the group of posh friends were Rachel's and he was only loitering with them to get in with her crowd, and there is no suggestion in either the book or film that he was heading for big things in his life either, in contrast to Charles who was about to go to Oxford Uni and was a promising writer.
Personally I don't see any real reason to feel bad for DeForest, but then again I didn't really take to Charles either
Dave makes a good point -- DeForest's character is more clearly conceited and controlling in the book. I can't imagine any readers feeling sorry for him (aside from that one description of DeForest reading his history text to last longer in bed).
I came here to see what readers of the book thought of this movie. I took to Charles much more in the book because his isolation came off as more like an intelligent writer who didn't fit in. Even though it was still clear that Charles was being dishonest and false in his relationship with Rachel, I felt that in the book it was easy to associate with his descriptions of the school environment and dealing with his family.
The scene where Norman brings Rachel back to the house with him and Charles rushes downstairs to clean up -- maybe I'm alone on this one, but in the book, I thought he seemed to pull this off, while in the movie he appeared to be clumsy and trying too hard. I think this shows the movie's tendency to want to portray Charles as, to quote the originator of this thread, "just a normal square."
Perhaps a stronger, less geeky Charles would have been too ambiguous for the average viewer of the movie? Maybe it is more accessible to have a clearly weak character representing the seduction tactics we are supposed to ultimately view as weak, dishonest and wrong?
"I came here to see what readers of the book thought of this movie. I took to Charles much more in the book because his isolation came off as more like an intelligent writer who didn't fit in."
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Agreed! Charles was supposed to be precociously intelligent, but instead they portrayed him as a geeky computer nerd. I've always felt that they were trying to cash in on the popularity of "WarGames" and "Weird Science" by portraying Charles in this way. I think Charles was like a "Martin Amis at 19" character in the book - I can't imagine what Amis would have thought about Charles being a nerd and a geek in the film!
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"The scene where Norman brings Rachel back to the house with him and Charles rushes downstairs to clean up -- maybe I'm alone on this one, but in the book, I thought he seemed to pull this off, while in the movie he appeared to be clumsy and trying too hard. I think this shows the movie's tendency to want to portray Charles as, to quote the originator of this thread, "just a normal square."
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That was always going to be a hard one to pull off on film, but when you start putting written scenes like that to film, it is going to lead to criticism by fans of the book. When you read the book, you can imagine how he pulls it off in your own mind. But I do agree with the second point,
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"Perhaps a stronger, less geeky Charles would have been too ambiguous for the average viewer of the movie? Maybe it is more accessible to have a clearly weak character representing the seduction tactics we are supposed to ultimately view as weak, dishonest and wrong?"
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But if someone like, say, Matthew Broderick had played Charles (I think Matthew Broderick would have been an excellent choice if they had been able to afford him and convince him to appear in the film), you may have looked at it along the lines of 'well, it is wrong, but he's a loveable rogue so let him have this one'. My view is that when Martin Amis created the character his intention was to make him a loveable rogue with a precociously intelligent mind but ultimately a social misfit. Ultimately though, I think they cast Charles the way they did (as an intelligent but wimpish and geeky teen instead of a precocious and ambitious social misfit) to try and appeal to the contemporary audience of 1989.
It's good to hear from another fan of the book anyway!