How to not turn a book into a film (Spoilers from the book)

So there's a good way to turn a book into a film... and then there is s**t like this.
First 15 minutes: Just like the book.
First 30 minutes: Just like the book.
First hour: 95% exactly the book down to almost every line of dialogue.
After ~1hour: Change ALL THE THINGS!

I honestly cannot imagine anyone who has read the novel to like this film. Either someone rewrote the whole second part of the film to "suit a larger audience" or whatever or Hallström just went completely bananas after just copy+pasting from the book just like he did in Hachiko (from the original film that time) and decided that he wanted his own better spin on it.
The result: a dull Hollywood ending that fails to capture the whole essence of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
I can understand that you might have to make some changes to a novel like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, being an adult tale but a children's film but can the majority of audiences not handle DEATH.... in a film? Why oh why change the PM to the FS when he is still going to live? Why oh why must they fall in love? Why oh why must it end in a success?
I would have understood if they changed some minor things but not everything about it.
After all it's not a dark novel we are taking from here, it just doesn't end with rainbows, unicorns and sunshine.
If you can't be arsed to write your own script or buy a good script from somewhere then at least have the decency to make it justice. I hope Hallström feels as ashamed of this as I feel being his countryman...