As a big fan of the book, I would make a strong argument that it is (and I detail the film's incompetence on my blog).
But what are some of the other terrible book to film adaptations?
Check out the latest Spin on this terrible film @
http://theschleicherspin.com/2015/03/16/is-serena-the-worst-book-to-fi lm-adaptation-in-the-history-of-cinema/
I actually came here just to see if anyone else shared this view. Worst adaptation ever. Totally lost the spirit of the book and majorly unnecessary and nonsensical changes to the original story. So disappointing.
shareYes - it was as if they didn't even understand what the book was about. No spirit...no atmosphere...just a lazy adaptation with arbitrary changes to the story all for the worse.
shareNo I stll think the 1995 version of the Scarlet Letterhad this one beat.
STRENGTH AND MUSCLE AND JUNGLE WORK.....
Oh, archer1949 - the Demi Moore Scarlet Letter fiasco! That IS a good (I mean bad) one. You might be on the money there.
sharearcher and writerdave you took me kneejerk response off my keyboard- and I love Gary Oldman, but that version of The Scarlet Letter still makes me twitch.
The early version of Wuthering Heights is right up there as well. The one that ends with Cathy's death, when in fact it happens early in the novel.
Serena, wow. At first, I wasn't as disappointed as I thought I would be based on the reviews. I thought the film was too soft on both the main characters and marginalized the sheriff and Rachel.
Otherwise, not horrible....then the last 20+ minutes happened...
It has probably been 4-5 years since I read the novel, but I remember not being able to put it down while the sheriff was working to get Rachel out of town. I recall the whole train station scene being very suspenseful. This movie turned it into a cheap action sequence.
Serena being a victim of her past. No. The movie makes it seems like she was so scarred by what happened to her family that she was no longer normal. As I recall there was every hint in the novel that she actually set the fire so she would inherit everything. She was also the maestro behind her husband's death. She is portrayed as killer in this movie, but only selectively. The Serena of the novel was a sociopath.
Pemberton was portrayed a shrewd business man who went bad after he met her, when in fact he was always cruel, she just made him worse. In both works, he did at last come through to try to protect his son, but that is the only redeeming quality he had in the book. The movie is kinder to him.
Pemberton's death was also botched and I don't know why they had to let him kill the panther in this version. His death in the novel was more poetic and powerful.
Her death, I am not even going to get started. Again, why did they make her sympathetic? Admittedly, I do understand why they left Brazil out this adaptation, but there was not need make her soft and tragic.
When I read this book, I clearly remember thinking 'some folks just need killing,' and then I felt ridiculous, because I am not a Clint Eastwood-John Wayne type. That was just my primitive reaction to a compelling book. This movie drained that right out.
Oddly, another thing I kept thinking when I read Serena was that other than Cathy in East of Eden, I could not remember a more depraved female protagonist in an American novel. For a while Jennifer Lawrence was signed on to play them both.
I just finished watching it myself as I rented it from Amazon and my reaction was basically the same as yours.
I had not known about the novel until I saw they were making a movie of it ( I am a fan of Jennifer Lawrence and at least look into any movie she is in) and I got the book as an audio book. I really preferred the novel's handling of things compared to the movie. The movie just had too much of a sympathetic ending for the characters.
I knew there might be a problem with the difference in how the movie handled the scene where it is first revealed the girl is pregnant. The book showed that Pemberton was not a nice guy whereas the movie made him seem like he would have done the right thing if he was not married to Serena.
I knew there might be a problem with the difference in how the movie handled the scene where it is first revealed the girl is pregnant.
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No I stll think the 1995 version of the Scarlet Letterhad this one beat.
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Right. I heard the director quoted saying condescending things about Hawthorne and how he would "fix" the "problems". The reality was that the director didn't know what the novel was about.
Haven't seen the movie, but I'm very confused by the research I did on it.
Reviews of the book describe the Pembertons as hateful characters who ruin the lives of people who work for them or depend on them.
Trailer made Serena look like an attractive character ( proto-feminist, love interest).
So did the movie change the novel's story? Or did they try to have it both ways, and end up botching it? Is that why it failed?
No, that title is held by Dune.
shareI read the book after hearing that a film was being made. I didn't have really high expectations from the start tbh. I loved the book and I think that these are good actors but I never saw Jennifer Lawrence as Serena while reading the book. I was picturing her as Rachel Harmon.
sharePersonally, I was extremely disappointed by the screen version of "The First Wives Club." The novel was exquisite, wonderfully written, and very serious. There was nothing in the novel that would lend itself to being portrayed as a comedy. Although I enjoyed the movie, it was a terrible version of the novel. Horrible Horrible injustice.
Eat your cereal with a fork and do your homework in the dark
WriterDave-
I have not read the book so I cannot comment on the film as an adaptation. I can, however, comment on what a terrible film it was based on all the criterion that a film is based on. But that would simply take too long. This film fails on every single level but one, in my opinion. The only positive I can find would be the establishing shots in the film. Such beautiful landscapes that were captured by the second unit.
I would like to throw in a couple of my most disappointing book to film adaptations. Timeline by Michael Crichton, Jumper by Steven Gould. Both were good books, well-written and fun. Then Hollywood came along absolutely destroyed them. Such soulless adaptations.