Sometimes ... the movie is better
| When the movie is better than the book | |
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| From page-to-screen | | I’m one of those annoying people who says the book is always better than the show, because it is! Except when it isn’t. Case in point: I liked the HBO version of “Big Little Lies” a whole lot more than I liked Liane Moriarty’s book. And what Hulu has done with the "Handmaid’s Tale" is futuristically fantastic. Here are four page to screen adaptations for 2023 you won’t want to miss: I read Charmaine Wilkerson’s “Black Cake” this spring and I was thrilled when Oprah’s production company snapped up the rights for Hulu. The action in the novel moves back and forth between childhood secrets in the Caribbean and the contemporary mystery of a mother’s death and a missing sibling. Victor LaValle's “The Changeling,” a novel about a rare book dealer whose wife vanishes after committing an appalling act of violence, is being made into an Apple TV+ series. I’m betting the show will be every bit as disturbing as the book. I listened to Rumaan Alam’s “Leave the World Behind” on a cross-country road trip last summer and kept thinking what a great movie it would have made.
There’s news that Netflix thinks so too and that Mahershala Ali is going to star!
The novel is about a Brooklyn family who heads to the Hamptons for their summer vacation. But no sooner have they settled in than the owners of the house arrive at the door, pleading to be let in.
This is not going where you think it is but the story builds to an ominous pitch that feels both claustrophobic and deeply isolating.
And my last page-to- screen must read & see is the sensational novel “Women Talking” by Miriam Toews. A friend gave me the book at a reading retreat last year and I have to admit, I would’ve never guessed that a film could do justice to this incredible novel. It’s one of those books that I’ve thought about for months.
The movie was directed by Sarah Polley and stars Claire Foy, Rooney Mara and Frances McDormand. It has a bit of a “Handmaids Tale” style -- watch how the film’s color changes ever so subtly.
And the camerawork on the women’s faces is moving and absorbing.
Happy reading and watching!
— Kerri Miller | MPR News |
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| | Women bootleggers in the time of Prohibition |
Journalist and author Jeannette Walls returns with a much-anticipated third novel. “Hang the Moon” follows a fiery young woman trying to maneuver within her own powerful family in Prohibition-era Virginia. | |
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