books to movies

Last night my book club gathered to watch the Masterpiece Theatre production of The Women in White, our last month's book. (see July 30th post) With anticipation we settled in with our little plates of snacks and began the movie. Soon you could hear groans and exclamations of, "that wasn't in the book", or "I don't remember that", or "was that in the book?". As we watched over the next two hours all of us were disappointed at the liberties the producers took in their interpretation of "our" book. The story line took off in another direction, the characters changed and blended into new people, the plot varied and basically wasn't like the book in many ways. While I have to admit reducing a five hundred page book into two hours must be difficult, I don't know why producers have to change the story line so much, especially sensationalizing the basic plot. It was very distressing to all of us. I haven't seen too many movies that I liked as well as the book, and last night's viewing solidified my opinion that books are better than movies!