FROM THE PAGE TO THE PICTURES: The Vine’s Top 10 Modern Book-To-Film Adaptations
While Paula Hawkin’s novel The Girl On the Train was universally praised and gathered a huge following, the buzzed about film is already receiving mostly negative reviews.
Book-to-film adaptions are not always a success story. Considering the length and detail in many great novels, there is a fine art in working out what needs to be chopped for the silver-screen, while keeping true to the story readers love.
As described by David Edelstein in Vulture, some filmmakers miss the mark when it comes to capturing the meaningful details that readers originally got swept up in. Of The Girl On The Train, he went as far as to say,
I got depressed early, when I realized I’d be spending two hours in the hands of people who didn’t know how to tell a story.
With this in mind, we set ourselves on a quest to review and compile 10 of our favourite book to film adaptations.
Note that there is a catch – we’ve gone ahead and excluded the obvious big budget franchises such as Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Twilight, Da Vinci Code and The Lord of The Rings series. Obviously, it wouldn’t be fair game and it’s exactly what you’d expect.
(Also, soz Fifty Shades of Grey didn’t make the list ?)
Here’s The Vine’s top 10 modern book-to-film adaptions:
1. The Notebook
The 2004 adaptation of romance writer Nicholas Sparks’ first novel quickly became an instant classic. Partly attributed to the story of a tortured love affair and the electric chemistry between leads Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams – which soon became mega stars in their own right. The book itself is a tad sappy, and subsequent Sparks books-to-films have been pretty terrible. But The Notebook is a notable exception and many regard the film as even better than the novel.