For those who both read the book AND saw the movie. *heavy SPOILERS*
Typical disclaimer: Heavy spoilers, stop reading now if you don't want spoilers.
We always hear how the book is better. In this case, I'm not sure this is entirely true. For one thing, the book was rather short. A lot could be sliced out because the book becomes monotonous a few times (call me shallow, but I got sick and tired of her getting upset with "Ben", all the freaking time, for not telling her about Adam). That said, there were some elements that the book shared with us that the movie did not.
For example, we did not really get to see sympathetic Mike for very long. There were moments that were actually rather touching. Ones that I could see Colin Firth fully playing off and playing it off well. For example, that moment in the park, I think it was, when she asks if they ever had any children and he takes her hand and speaks to her as though she were a child waking from a bad dream. "No, no we did not." He even rubbed her hand, as though trying to console her before she needed consoling. That makes you trust "Ben" in the beginning. He seems to really care.
Another thing is that she was older. It is dramatically different to wake up when you're in middle age. At the age of 40, for example, she has a very good chance of having another child. At the age of 47? Your chance is slim to none. In a short 7 years, the female body changes tremendously. The shock of thinking she was in her 20s to find that she was nearly 50 is a huge difference than what came through in the movie.
When the movie was over, I turned to my husband and said that this movie was age discriminatory. What's wrong with a woman being near 50? Typical Hollywood type crap. /small rant
Then there was the age difference in the book with Dr. Nash (SIC). Why they changed his name and spelling are beyond me. However Ed, was a nice very young man. Her struggle with keeping the age difference in check was very interesting.
I can understand being forced to leave elements out. We have hours upon hours of book material but only about one hour and forty minutes to tell the story on film. Things must go, but why their ages? Why Ed's name?
Why they ditched letting us see a more sympathetic Mike in the beginning is, in my opinion, a dire mistake. If we can't fully see how kind he is, then the less shock we feel to find that it's all fake. It's not as mind boggling.
Another thing was the gradual hints that when things didn't go his way, his behavior became erratic. It was kind of a zero to 100 in the film. It made it a little less believable.
I could easily see combining the best friend character and the doctor (I know a lot will protest that, but really neither contributed very much in the end; they were just being confidantes really) just so they could have spent more time on her and Mike's fake relationship.
Finally, I wonder what the reason was for deciding to use film instead of paper when it came to her recording her thoughts. I think they blew an opportunity there. To see her emotion as she read what she wrote. Obviously not us sitting there watching her read, but hear her words as we see bits and pieces of what she's doing. Instead, in the end, we only got a couple of small snippets of what she had to say.
Finally, the whole hotel thing was laughable in the movie. My husband looked at me and asked, "What? Is everyone in the hotel deaf?" I told him that I'm assuming that's why it's next to the airport, so that neighbors wouldn't hear. It was a stretch and very contrived. It made much more sense in the book.
All in all I'm not saying I didn't like the movie and how they handled it. I did. I liked it a lot, but I think the movie failed a little bit. They had a great cast (I mean, you can't get much better than Kidman and Firth, who really did fit the parts well) and a neat story idea. It just didn't come off as well as it could have.
Any thoughts on this?
Random Thoughts: http://goo.gl/eXk3O