
IMHO,there aren't too many movies surpass the brilliance of the books they have been adapted from.I am not talking about the Harry potter series or The Godfather series or even LOR. I am talking non-fantasy , non- gangster based and non-art-house,Oscar-type fare like-Eat pray Love and Julie and Julia.
I loved reading Eat, Pray, Love(the book). Ok shameless plug now.You can find my review of Eat , Pray ,love(the book)-
here and got to watch the movie adaptation finally .I am having a a tough time getting over the "Duh" feeling it left me with after the movie ended.And that's surprising because i dont think i am a demanding movie-goer who only sees taut, incredibly dense, arty movies. I am a girl who occasionally doesn't mind being seen in pink and will tuck in vast reels of chick-lit movies with good-matured gusto.I even liked Legally Blonde(both parts) and have watched them atleast 5 times.
Somehow the thought of Julia Roberts gallivanting around the globe in search of purpose of life and happiness smacked me in my head.And thats not a good type of a smack i am talking about. I felt this despite the fact that the movie is pretty much faithful to the book and Elizabeth Gilbert looks uncannily like Julia Roberts. Maybe the length was its undoing.The plot just dragged on and on and on ... 133 minutes of the movie was positively squirm-inducing ,despite the lovely places they got to show us. Even if i treated the book like some travelogue,i want my money back !.
And , is there anyone else who thinks that Julia Roberts has started looking more horsey than is humanly possible?I know thats a really mean thing to say about an incredibly talented actress,but i really cant figure out what put me off the movie and i am grabbing whatever cheap tools i have in my box right now. The magic,spontaneity and the warmth that the book possessed somehow dissipated in the movie.
The only redeeming aspects were Ketut, an incredibly sweet , Balinese old man who spouts adorable stuff like "I can't fly in airplane.I no teeths" and the obscenely rakish Javier Bardem (who floored us all with his sex-appeal in Vicky,christina and Barcelona.).He doesn't disappoint here either -he broods, looks intense and does all those things that he is expected to. Despite all this ,the movie was a huge letdown.
Lets talk Julie and Julia now.I didnt think the book was incredible-just passably okay.But at least it was Julie Powel's life that was at the centre stage. Now what do the movie barons do ? They cast an incredibly talented Meryl Streep and wonder whether they should put in more parts with Streep in it to make it win 1 Oscar atleast.They start tweaking the script so much that the final product seems more like the story of Julia Child and not about what it is predominantly supposed to be.The narrative now is mostly about Julia's life-how she enrolled at the cooking institute,how she starts writing a book and struggles to get published while the story of Julie's struggle and the challenge she takes up to escape her mundane life is relegated to the obligatory 3 minute clip once every 20 minutes. Who the hell was the protagonist in that movie ,again?.
Thankfully, I saw another book-adaptation sometime back that makes me feel that there is still hope for viewers like me. It was a BBC and HBO adaptation of The No1 ladies Investigative agency. It adorable.The warmth and wit that somehow gets tempered in the meandering pages of the book hits you bang on with adaption.One couldn't have asked for a better choice of casting. But the actors ,though famous weren't bigger than the script,which sadly i think was the case with both Julie and Julia and Eat,Pray Love.
Just one crib thought -I just wonder why The No1 ladies detective agency was televised rather than be made into a movie .There are enough fans of Alexander Mc Call Hill who would go watch it just to see what their favorite private investigator, Mma Ramostwe was really like.
What do you think ?Liked the movies?Seen the HBO-BBC series?Come on people, show Bedazzled some "louve" here.. I have been averaging just 5-6 comments here for the last few posts and even have had to resort to blackmailing the hubby for some comments.Ok,as usual i was exaggerating,but" please no mind" .