From Book to Film

I finished reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky just under the wire. The movie opened on four screens a week ago, and will soon descend on more. If I see the movie first, I’m less inclined to read the book, and since Perks is one of those books that leaves permanent impressions on each of your senses, it would have been sad to have neglected the read. Now I’m holding my breath that the movie stays true to the book.

Gobs of movies portray books well. Some movies improve on the book (wonder how that writer feels), while others take a good book and twist it around into a good movie that’s a mere shadow of the book. Surely Kathryne Stockett couldn’t have been more thrilled with the film rendition of The Help.  Stephen King, on the other hand, purportedly disdained Stanley Kubrick’s portrayal of The Shining. Wonder if Roald Dahl would have preferred Johnny Depp or Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka?

So what are your favorite book-to-film movies? These have to be books that you’ve read. The “Sawshank Redemption” is one of my favorite movies, but I’ve never read the short story. Here are some titles I appreciated as much on film as on the page.

• Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris
• Bridget Jone’s Diary by Helen Fielding
• Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquival
• Ordinary People by Judith Guest
• Eye of the Needle by Ken Follet
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
• Deep End of the Ocean by Jacqueline Mitchard
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowler
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett