uHollywood

I have always been of the view that books can never be successfully made into films or TV programmes because as a student of literature I have always been told how they’re inferior to the novel itself and one should read the book to get the full benefit of the story. I thought that I always would hold this view. Despite this fact, I continue to watch countless adaptations. Even the greats like Pride and Prejudice fail to excite my enthusiasm for them. Despite the fact that Colin Firth looks exceeding handsome in his wet shirt and breeches, I remained unmoved by the attempts by very good writers such as Andrew Davis to recreate my favourite novels for the modern audience.

I have waited for years for an adaptation to surpass the novel itself, and to my surprise I have finally found one. The Jane Austen Book Club. I read the book first and thought it to be the biggest load of rubbish that I have ever read, and believe me when I state that I have read more than my fair share of rubbish. Admittedly I thought that the plot was excellent, but the execution of it was definitely not up to the standard that I would anticipate from a published work. I would even go so far as to state that I have read stories by amateur writers in their first week of a creative writing course that deserved to be published before The Jane Austen Book Club. The novel read more like a transcript of an academic discussion rather than a novel.

The film adaptation not only surpassed the book it deserves, in my humble opinion, to not be referred to as a adaptation at all but deserves to be classed as a film in its own right.

Some of you may be thinking that I only liked the film because the very talented and very gorgeous Hugh Dancy plays Grigg Harris, the only male member of the book club. I can honestly say, with my hand on my heart that although that is partly the case the reason is that the superb screenplay by Robin Swicord bring something out in the characters that not even their creator could.

I am so pleased that I have been proved wrong in my belief that books are superiorto film. It has re-established my faith in the genre and I look forward to seeing the next massive screen adaptation of a novel, particularly The Time Traveller’s Wife. A book which was innovative and unique.