Am I being unreasonable to think if you make a film of a book...

[vvviola]

.... you should actually use the story of the book?!

I just watched Child 44. They ruined it. Took away the whole central premise of the book.

I should know better by now, I don't think I've ever been impressed with the film version of a book except maybe To Kill a Mockingbird

I tend to agree 90% of the time, but think some films are better than the books. IMHO these were better as films:

• The English Patient - I thought this had a beauty as a film that the book lacked, ditto The Constant Gardener.

• The Second Hunger Games book I thought was a much better film - I really loved the film, but was disappointed in the book

• Brokeback Mountain. Loved the movie, the book was a bit meh.

• The Devil Wears Prada. Such a funny and touching movie, the book didn't have quite as much heart

• Sense and Sensibility (the mid 90s film). I loved the film more than I loved the book.

Although some movie adaptions are terrible! I am still bitter about Tom Cruise being cast as Jack Reacher. Whyyyyyy? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY???

Yay One Day. I loved the 'realness' of the characters in the book.
Anne Hathaway is probably a lovely person, but she wasn't Emma Morley.

I liked the book, but the film of P.s I Love You was beyond awful, it was about Irish people, living in Ireland. Then they USA-ed it up to the Nth degree. The twee stereotypical schmaltz when she visited Ireland was excruciating to watch.

YY to The Dark Is Rising. They ruined such a wonderful book. Poor Susan Cooper, they did everything to her books that PL Travers feared with Mary Poppins.

Well, there was a silver lining to the awfulness that was the film... I now have a list of new books to check out thanks to this thread

The Will Smith version of I am Legend completely misses the point of the book.

I'm another one completely traumatised by The Dark Is Rising.

I have read the book so many times throughout my life, and I'm now joyously reading it for the first time to my DS(8) and DD(5). It is such a brilliant story and was the start of my love of fantasy novels. In the right hands the film could have been epic. Instead the story was made incomprehensible, delivered by an American child (?????- the whole series is built around English myths and legends- why????), who had completely the wrong personality and they turned the whole thing into a joke. I turned it off. I couldn't tolerate what the film was doing to my deep love of the book.

Such a waste, such a terrible waste.....

With the kind permission of the OP, we are now going to move this thread over to our fabulous Films topic.

How To Lose Friends And Alienate People.

Hated the book which had a couple of funny bits but otherwise stuffed with Toby Young's pratings.

Quite liked the film with Simon Pegg which played up the funny bits and ditched the tedious social and political views.

Fatmomma has already mentioned one of my favourites : Brighton Rock. But then Graham Greene often wrote the screenplays for is own novels and was a great screenwriter in his own right IMO.

No-one has yet mentioned LA Confidential. It was supposed to be the book that could never be filmed but I think that just focusing on a single strand of Ellroy's fantastic novel was the only way to ever film it. It's so different from the novel that the film stands on it's own. I feel this way about To Kill a Mockingbird as well.

I hate Jodi Piccoult too. Absolute moralistic tosh.

I agree with all those saying the Fight Club was a better film than book and I had high hopes for Fincher's "Gone Girl" but I found the film to be as poor and obvious as the book.

Oh and agree about Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher - hahahahaha worst casting eva

Not sure if this has been mentioned already but the adaptations of the Percy Jackson books were terrible! I'm not adverse to book adaptations but these changed so much of the story for seemingly no reason whatsoever.

Where The Wild Things Are

Lesson learned...nine sentence book cannot be turned into a feature length film.