9 Film Adaptations That Are Better Than The Book

Of course, there is the popular axiom that “the book is always better than the movie.” There are many reasons for this: a great book can immerse you for many nights of reading, while a film has just a couple of hours to fill your time with the same story and characters. The novel or book is the primary work of one person with a small crew of helping hands, like editors. With a film, there are many more cooks in the kitchen, so to speak, making it likelier for certain aspects – from the acting to the accuracy of the set design – to not live up to readers’ expectations. Most of all, novels that come with a first-person perspective often give screenwriters a challenge, since the writer must bring the idiosyncratic thoughts and feelings of the character to life through a visual medium.

Jordan Adler Dec 2, 2013 1:27 pm2017-10-19T23:25:19-05:00

Slumdog Millionaire

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Based on Vikas Swarup’s inventive novel Q & A, the 2008 Best Picture winner took Swarup’s framework and structure but turned it into a journey of greater scope and with a more satisfying narrative. Both are about an orphan from Mumbai imprisoned by authorities for cheating on a quiz show. Furthermore, both go back into the protagonist’s life as he explains the incredible events that taught him the answers to the quiz show’s questions.

Swarup’s novel is more episodic though than Danny Boyle’s pulsing, thrillingly alive drama, which uses Jamal Malik’s (Dev Patel) motivation to appear on the game show as a way to win the attention of his crush, Latika (Freida Pinto). In the novel, his motivation for appearing on the show does not arrive until the final chapter, diminishing the novel of the same drive that ignites Boyle’s film. Meanwhile, without an episodic structure, the film becomes more compelling, further examining Jamal’s relationship with his manipulative older brother, Salim (Madhur Mittal).

In Swarup’s book, protagonist Ram Mohammad Thomas auditions for the quiz show to take revenge on the host, who abuses his former employer. The audience has more of a rooting interest in Jamal than Ram, whereas Danny Boyle’s bold film – filled with kinetic cinematography, brisk pacing and a dazzling musical score from A.R. Rahman – brings the vivid colour and romance of India, as well as the squalor of slum life there, front and centre.

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