UPDATE: Slumdog Millionaire wins the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay!
Not that this prediction is risky, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ won the writing award at the Golden Globes, the Writer’s Guild Association Awards and at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. It won all of those awards before I read the book, originally called Q&A by Vikas Swarup, or saw the movie. I wondered, why the hat trick? As a I wrote in previous posts, ‘The Reader,‘ ‘Frost/Nixon,‘ and ‘Doubt’ are fine examples of writing in their original format and the screenplays did a good job of portraying the story. ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ irritated me because it wasn’t that story, it was a different one. But I hope it encouraged people to read F. Scott Fitzgerald and Brad Pitt will be pretty to look at on Sunday night.
I kept hearing different opinions about the movie, a girlfriend told me it was uplifting, a story of hope, and a review called it a present day fairy tale. But standing in the bathroom line at the movie theatre (men miss out on bathroom line conversations) a woman said it’s the most depressing movie she had seen all year (I wanted to ask if she had seen ‘Revolutionary Road’ or ‘The Reader’ or even ‘Doubt,’ but I waver on whether or not I can contribute to line conversations). Then, the conversation between Claire and Catherine in the comments section of a previous post described the movie as painful to watch, Claire couldn’t, Catherine squirmed the whole way through. The Indians are not happy with the movie. But, it’s winning awards everywhere and not just for writing, it’s sweeping the non-actor major categories.
After reading the book and seeing the movie, I understand better. I agree, which surprises me, I thought I was going to vote for ‘The Reader.’ Q&A is a quick, mostly fun book. It is the story of a poor, uneducated orphan who picks up knowledge from his experiences and gets lucky on a game show. The living conditions are terrible, but not unrealistic. Ram, the name of the lead character in the book, bounces from one job to another, collecting friends along the way and finally falls in love with a prostitute. He needs the show winnings to pay off her pimp.
The movie keeps the essence of the book, the fairy tale rags-to-riches tale, but the screenwriter, Simon Beaufoy, said that he had to re-write the story for the film. Jamal, formally Jamal in the book thereby losing the meaning of his name, has a brother, but far fewer friends. We lose the experiences with a middle class actress and a foreign spy. Jamal’s brother is far more ruthless than anyone character in the book, but he portrays in one character the ruthless road to survival that is only hinted at with several other characters in the book.
Latika doesn’t appear in the book at all, she’s a completely new character, although we see Jamal try to protect the girl next door and then his girlfriend so his caring nature carries through both genres. His constant hope and essential goodness are apparent. He is the good guy that the reader and viewer want to cheer for, he plays a knight galloping in to save a damsel in distress in both the movie and the book.
While the structure of the book is a little contrived, asking Jamal to explain how he knew the answers to each of the questions so the reader/viewer gets a view of his life, I liked it. It felt clever to me, but I wouldn’t think it was clever again, it’s one time trick. The book largely stays in that confine, with a separate story and chapter for each question. I think would feel tiresome in a movie. I liked having a smaller part focus on answering the questions and a larger section of the movie follow the love story.
Plus, the music is great. So, I’ll pick ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ as the winner of the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay because Simon Beaufoy had less to work with than the other writers, yet created a movie that kept the core of the original book while changing it for the screen format. Just to hedge a bit, I’d be very happy if ‘The Reader’ won. We’ll all find out the answer on Sunday night following the words “And the winner is . . .”
Tags: academy award, film, Oscar, Writing Adapted Screenplay
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I tell my daughter that the book is ALWAYS better than the movie to emphasize reading over endless watching, but this sounds like an instance that I’m wrong (don’t tell my husband that’s even remotely possible). Not that Emma will see this movie any time in the near future. But, as you know, I did and weeks later I am still haunted (not in a good way) by it. Though it was indeed a good “film,” it is not appropriate for anyone who doesn’t do torture, especially when children are involved.
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