I was very disappointed in this movie. Hearing the DVD commentary by the director, producer, and screenwriter explained why it was so bad but annoyed me because they didn't seem to know the book as well as anyone adapting a book into a movie should. It is understandable that the director and producer were much better acquainted with the screenplay than with its source, but the screenwriter has no excuse. She frequently said that adapting a popular book is difficult because fans of the book are so devoted to the text that they are upset because their own favorite episodes are left out. I enjoyed the book but am not that devoted a fan, and though I was sorry to see characters and scenes I liked left out, I know it would be impossible to make a movie that retained everything in a full-length novel. But to take the title, characters, and some of the events of a book, but change significant motivations, events, or characters beyond recognition is inexcusable. It was especially annoying when the screenwriter claimed scenes were true to the book when they weren't. The worst was when she made a big deal about not changing the ending, saying that Dodie Smith (the author) had been offered half a million dollars by book-of-the-month club to change it and she (the screenwriter) felt that if Smith resisted that much money it was important the ending stay the same. And she changed it! She changed it in a different way but the change was just as bad, arguably worse. She also changed some scenes in a way that made them not only contrary to fiction, but also to the real era in which the events of the movie are supposed to take place. Many movies do this, but I wish they wouldn't. On the positive side, the scenery was beautiful (though wrong for the supposed setting) and the acting was good for the most part. It was too bad that the story was changed enough that Neil and Simon behaved bizarrely and inexplicably. Neil especially was a strange caricature of an American, but given what he had to work with, I don't think it was the actor's fault. I'm sure I would have liked this movie slightly more if I had not read the book, but I still wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The screenwriter's plot just doesn't make sense. Maybe no screenplay could have adequately conveyed the character's motivations and the plot only makes sense in book form, but this screenwriter's attempt is truly terrible.
Review of I Capture the Castle
