What Makes A Good Book-to-Movie Adaptation
There are few things better than a well-made adaptation—a favorite book made into a satisfying movie or television series. Conversely, there are few things more infuriating than a poorly made adaptation (what was going on with that Netflix Persuasion, anyway?). But what exactly separates one from the other, and what can it teach us about our own storytelling?
Genuine Love for the Original
From a book perspective, it’s highly irritating when a showrunner, a director, or a scriptwriter admits that they have either never read the book or, having read it, didn’t care for it (with the recent admission by the showrunner of the upcoming Harry Potter television adaptation springing to mind). Granted that Hollywood is, first and foremost, a money-making endeavor, it would still behoove the powers that be to ensure that the people who make the adaptation actually like the thing that they’re adapting. It’s hard to tolerate the disrespect of someone who clearly thinks they can do it “better” than the original author (House of the Dragon is another unfortunate example). Contrast this with one of the best book-to-movie adaptations, Lord of the Rings, which succeeded in large part because of Peter Jackson’s profound love and respect for the original series. To put it more simply: fans understand fans.
Understanding Book vs. Movie Storytelling
Some stories are just better told through the written word than through a visual medium. Arguably, this is something that good authors inherently understand; they not only utilize their medium because it’s cheap and convenient but also because the best version of their story can be told leaning into the benefits of that medium. Donna Tartt is a perfect example of this; she speaks extensively about the things that a novel can do that other forms of storytelling simply can’t. Specifically, the interior world of a character is much easier to explore in a book than it is in a movie or a television show, so a largely interior story is better served through the written word. This may explain why The Goldfinch was so successful as a novel and so disastrous as a film—the story relies on the interior journey of Theo as he moves through the decade of his life following the loss of his mother. That journey is difficult to convey in film form. An adapter can handle this in a few different ways: becoming very creative in the methods they use to get an interior world across; leaning into the parts of the novel that will translate well into film form and ignoring the parts that won’t; or simply accepting that some books will never make a good movie adaptation and are best left alone. (Has anyone ever made a proper adaptation of a James Joyce story? Doubtful.)
Subtractions: Knowing What’s Important
A common complaint about adaptations is that they take out something that the audience of the original book was looking forward to seeing. We all have examples, even in good adaptations: the Tonks and Lupin romance in Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince; the infighting between Margot and Trina in the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy; the scaled-back romance of Jo and Mr. Bhaer (and alternate ending) of the 2019 Little Women. It’s inevitable that a movie adaptation, or even a television adaptation, will have to take out some parts of the story—books offer much more story space, and concessions have to be made. The trick is recognizing which parts of the story can be left aside, and which are sacrosanct to longtime fans. The 2005 Pride and Prejudice could get away with deleting one of Mr. Bingley’s sisters for the sake of simplicity, but it would have been preposterous to think it could cut the initial Elizabeth and Darcy proposal scene.
Additions: Knowing Where to Play
All adaptations subtract, but many, maybe most, also add to the original. A few examples: Sara Crewe’s father (spoiler alert!) surviving the end of A Little Princess; the cross-dressing pirate captain in Stardust; pretty much all of the Hobbit trilogy; and the aforementioned alternate ending of Little Women, which relied on additions as much as subtractions to achieve something wholly new. The purpose of this kind of addition might be to emphasize a particular plot or theme that appeals to the adapter; it might be to add its own spin on the story; it might rely on distinguishing itself from previous, famous adaptations of the same work, and therefore can’t simply adapt straight from the page. The Emma and Knightley proposal scene in the 2020 adaptation of Emma has her suffer a sudden nosebleed—an odd but distinctive addition. The trick with addition is similar to the trick of subtraction: does the new piece respect the original intentions of the book? Does it retain the mood of the original? Will it satisfy the fans? The Summer I Turned Pretty expanded considerably on the original stories, adding in new scenes, new characters, and new storylines, but it maintained the glowing warmth of a good teen romance. (It should be mentioned that this was at least partially maintained because its adapter was also its originator—Jenny Han wrote the books and produced the series, so she was able to maintain her original vision.)
Good Storytelling
Many television series and movie writers seem to be under the misapprehension that they can turn in sub-par work because the book the work is based on is beloved. It’s easy to see where this logic comes from: they get to do less work and still make bank because the audience already exists and will come to see a beloved book on screen, no matter the quality. In other words, they phone it in. It goes without saying that storytelling is an art form, so, like any art form, doing it well takes time, care, and attention. Just because everyone loved the Eragon book doesn’t mean they’ll be content with a mediocre or, let’s just say it, bad movie. In fact, a good rule of thumb might be: the more the book is loved, the more care and love should be put into its adaptation.
New vs. Old
An understanding of exactly how much leeway an audience will give a creator of an adaptation is at least partly predicated on how many adaptations have already been made. The 2005 Pride and Prejudice took liberties with the original story and made the entire thing considerably more romantic than the original, but it could get away with doing that because the book was approximately 200 years old and because multiple adaptations had already been made—including an aggressively faithful adaptation in 1995, which became the gold standard. Because the 1995 adaptation existed, the 2005 one could play around—and, arguably, needed to play around, since it needed to distinguish itself in some way from the earlier version. All the stories from Jane Austen or Charles Dickens or books like Sherlock Holmes or Frankenstein that have been adapted over and over again have a different problem with adaptations than a series like Harry Potter, where the movies were being made as the books were being released. Being faithful to source material is less important for a Sherlock Holmes adaptation than justifying a new work by doing something interesting and putting a unique spin on a well-worn story.
By Kayla Munger
Header image from cottonbro studio, pexels.com
