Day 4 - Books made into Movies

21 Feb 2017 Tweet 100daysofwriting · gillian-flynn · gone-girl · reading · writing

I didn’t do anything today. I woke up, ate breakfast, prepared for the exam I had, gave the exam from 2 pm - 4 pm, then came back and watched Veep for about 2 hours (time that I should probably have used to read this new book that I got. All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda. This book is supposed to be a mix of The Girl On The Train (Hawkins) which is now also a movie. The movie was great, although the narration could have been a little bit less book-like. They literally copied the chapter names over, put them on the screen, showed us their perspective. The movie was underwhelming in general, I don’t know why I kept expecting more. OH!

You see, I was struggling to find something to write about today. This was precisely why I started this, to force myself to think for about 30 minutes each day. And I hit on this! “Books made into Movies”.

The fundamental problem/gift (depending on how you look at it) with this kind of an approach is that a non-creative rendition of my thoughts and aspirations and what-not can only be kept up for so long. Definitely a lot less than 100 days, so eventually I am going to have to come up with some creative thing that I can talk about. Or, take the easier way out, and do something that I can talk about! Both these outcomes are totally agreeable for me, and that’s what my aim with this thing is!

Okay, to the topic at hand. Books made into movies. I have two specific experiences that are very different and worth talking about. A disclaimer here is that I loved all the books that I am going to talk about. So there might be a slight bias where I support the book and the author a lot more than I do the script-writer and the director and the producer of the movie.

The common theme in all these books is that they are of the psychological-thriller variety. I like this genre a lot and have read a few books that fall inside this genre.

Gone Girl

I saw the movie first, and then, recently, last December or thereabouts, I read the bo. I like this genre a lot and have read a few books that fall inside this genre.

Gone Girl

I saw the movie first, and then, recently, last December or thereabouts, I read the book. Definitely, I like the book a lot better. But I will also proudly claim that throughout the book, Ben Affleck was the book Nick Dunne as well for me. His casting was perfect: handsome, can pull off a writer (Affleck can probably pull off any character though!), and tall. Rosamund Pike was the cold and calculating book Amy Dunne for me too. Her casting again was so to-the-point and expected: pretty, shady enough to rouse suspicion, NYC enough to pull off the cocky attitutde once she moves back to Nick’s hometown.

I liked the book just because it was so much more intimate. I really got to know the characters. Characters that I had loved from watching and re-watching the Gone Girl movie, after absolutely falling in love with it since the first time I watched it when I was holding my breath until the revelation is made! I understood why Amy didn’t like coming back, I understood why Nick is definitely not as good as he is portrayed in the book, in fact, I actually felt that he isn’t all good, it was a feeling I had when I was reading the book. I don’t know why I had it, and I don’t what to pin-point it on now, my review although enlightening, doesn’t talk about Nick.

So, intimacy with the characters. That’s the thing that did it for me. If I can really get to know Amy and Nick and Go, then I can understand why it happened and I can understand whether they will ever be able to come out of it. (which I don’t think is possible)

One last quote from Gone Girl, this was also in the movies and is insane:

What are you thinking, Amy? How are you feeling? Who are you? What havbe we done to each other? What will we do?

Dark Places

Another Gillian Flynn book. I read the book way before I even knew a movie existed. When I finally saw the movie, it was a major disappointment. There is one scene in my head, that was stuck there ever since I read about it in the book. It’s the scene in which Ben colors his hair black and comes to the breakfast table, and his mom tells him to remove his hat.

Everyone at the table is a red-head except for Ben. Libby is the only one who doesn’t freak out and thinks it looks good on Ben, the others completely freak out! The elder two are screaming and crying and hysteric, almost. The mother is almost close to tears, she questions her own behaviour over the past few days and blames herself for this ghastly thing that Ben has done to himself. All of this is from reading a book. The movie, what can I say, either they didn’t want to play this up or just plain missed it. The movie scene was so sober, it was a big build-up that I hoped would be amazing. It was not. If you have read the book, get this movie and watch this scene, you will understand what true disappointment is. (Kidding, it’s bad, but not as bad as I make it sound in the last paragraph)

Apart from this, Trey is an Indian dude who is extremely shady, hangs out with Diondra and Ben, and also happens to be rich enough to be eccentric and crazy. His casting was okay, I guess (?), because I was expecting him to be a humongous tall fit man, around whom, Ben would be considered nothing more than a teenage boy. He’s not that huge, and doesn’t really appear much in the movie at all, except for a few scenes with Diondra and Ben.

This movie was a major disappointment, and it was mainly because except for Diondra and Krissi Cates, every other character’s role seemed to be diminished and not as much as I hoped it would be.

(This could also all be explained by saying that I got too carried away by the book and had really high expectations. Not sure if that is legit though.)

Yeah, that’s all I am going to talk about today. When doing something like “100DaysOfWriting”, it’s all about pace. If I spend too much time on today’s post, it will become a habit and the cost of doing this will increase and I don’t intend for that to happen. So, talking about “The Girl On The Train” is going to have to wait.

POST #4 is OVER