The Storied Life Of A.J. Fikry (Book-2014, Film-2022) Every so often (or if I put it in fluent cliche, "once in a blue moon"), a film adaptation of a book does come along that improves upon its source......a film that we all think of actually better than the book.
If I strained my brain hard enough, I could come up with a handful of examples....("Jaws" comes immediately to mind)
But let's face it, when comparing 99% of book-to-film adaptations.....the book wins.
Exhibit A: this book.....this movie.
What's odd and ironic about this......it's not a case of clumsy, wrong-headed tampering by either the screenwriter or the director.
Gabrielle Zevin, the author of the bestselling book, wrote the film's screenplay. And she's unfailingly faithful to all the key elements of her own story throughout. Plot developments, characters, they're all here.
The director, Hans Canosa, appears to take no great visual, imaginative or dramatic leaps with Zevin's straightforward adaptation......he serves the screenplay ably enough.
And yet even with the elements of the book firmly in place the film never achieves the book's accomplishments......captivating a reader with wit, heart and telling characterizations.
While I thought of the book' as a small, modest treasure, the film just lies there, never quite engaging anyone who watched it.....which maybe explains why it went straight to streaming services.
(The film's music score, however, swells with overly dramatic heartfelt fervor, as if begging you to experience the kind of emotional pull you would have gotten if you read the book first.)
Zevin's book borrows the "Silas Marner" trope of a embittered crank humanized by his unlikely adoption of an orphaned toddler. A.J. Fikry (Kunal Nayyar) the widowed owner of a bookstore on a scenic New England island, lives a fairly miserable, soured life, made an irascible misanthrope by his wife's passing.
But he rejoins the world with his parenting of a baby girl abandoned in his store and his love of a publisher's sales representative (Lucy Hale) whose favorite book's about a senior who finds love.
(Let me stop to point out a casting quibble here. Hale competently takes on the story's secondary role, but she still looks as lacquered and coiffed as a Disney Channel teen TV star, making her look miscast in the role.....)
Quirky characters and even a few plot twists swirl around A.J. and his sweetly precocious adopted daughter, who in adolescence, rapidly matures into a gifted writer herself. I only wish I could say the film captures your heart with the same precise skill as the book.
The author's screen adaptation does quickly and deftly skim across every turn of the book's plot points.....like a stone pitched across a lake and splashing multiple times. But even while the music's trying to wring tears out of me during the credit crawl, the film left me with impression of having watched nothing more than a Cliff's Notes description of the book.
"The Storied Life Of A.J. Fikry" was not the first bookstore novel steeped in the redemptive power of reading among its bibliophile characters, but as created by Gabrielle Zevin, one of the finest of the bunch. It's a 4 star (****) experience for any lucky reader who picks it up.
The film version duly replicates the story, but stays content to remain in the book's shadow, coming out like an extended 105 minute trailer for the book. 2 & 1/2 stars (**1/2)....(I can already envision high school kids viewing the film as quick substitute in submitting a book report)
Even if you never get around to seeing the film, by all means, read the book.
No comments:
Post a Comment