Act Four: What makes for a great movie adaptation of a book

The best movie adaptations know how to bring out what's best in a work, and cut what's weakest.   Alyssa Rosenberg on culture and politics   Rosamund Pike appears in “Gone Girl.” (Merrick Morton/20th Century Fox via Associated Press) Every week, I answer a question from Monday’s live chat in the Wednesday edition of the Act Four newsletter. You can find the transcript of the Aug. 15 chat here, and you can submit questions for the Aug. 22 chat here. This week, a reader asked a question inspired by my decision to read Paula Hawkins’s”The Girl on the Train” before Tate Taylor’s adaptation arrives on screen on Oct. 7. Aside from Harry Potter, which I think is a gimme, what do you think is the best movie adaptation of a book? Usually, they are very disappointing. As usual, I’m not going to name a single best movie adaptation, or even give you a ranked list. But I would name a couple of terrific examples that work for different reasons. The 1995 miniseries adaptation of “Pride and Prejudice” starring Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth is the rare filmed adaptation that manages to be basically word-for-word faithful to the dialogue of Jane Austen’s original, without feeling confined or stunted by that language, or by the period dilemmas. Some of this is a testament to the liveliness of Austen’s writing. But it’s also credit to the way director Simon Langton and Ehle and Firth manage to find the timeless heat behind the period constraints. By contrast, it’s easy to forget that “The Godfather” is an adaptation of a novel, since it has acquired such stature in its own right. But part of what makes Francis Ford Coppola’s adaptation of Mario Puzo’s novel so terrific is that he had a fine sense of what to cut from the original. In prose, I kind of love the Vegas-bound journey of Sonny Corleone’s mistress, Lucy. But in terms of narrative coherence, it totally makes sense that she shows up in a single scene in the movie. More recently, David Fincher’s adaptation of “Gone Girl” is a great example of what translating something from the page to the screen can add to a story. The chilly, painterly visuals of Fincher’s riff on Gillian Flynn’s horror story, combined with the outstanding casting of Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck, deepen the fear in the novel, and the thematic exploration of the nastiness that can lie beneath our carefully cultivated surfaces. ADVERTISEMENT   Advocating for specific plot twists isn’t meaningful political activism Progressives should focus more broadly on who gets to tell stories, and the freedom they have to tell them, rather than getting caught up in narrow battles. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   How rape accusations should change the conversation about ‘The Birth of a Nation’ Trying to judge the worthiness of an artist as a person and the merit of his work as art need to be two separate conversations. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   In ‘The Get Down,’ Baz Luhrmann spins magical realist vision of hip-hop’s birth Being present at the birth of a revolution is a magical thing, especially when you're a teenager. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   ‘Hell or High Water’ upends the Western to capture the end of an American idea In Taylor Sheridan and David Mackenzie's extraordinary new film, Texans have become the Indians they once conquered: just another people on the brink of extinction. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   Art is about surrender. Stop asking for it to be custom-tailored. Fans who want stories to unfold exactly how they see fit are missing the point of art in the first place. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   ADVERTISEMENT   Recommended for you   Intersect The corner of the Internet and interesting, in your inbox weekly. Sign Up »         Share Act Four:       Twitter      Facebook Trouble reading? Click here to view in your browser. You received this email because you signed up for Act Four. For additional free newsletters or to manage your newsletters, click here. We respect your privacy. If you believe that this email has been sent to you in error or you no longer wish to receive email from The Washington Post, click here. Contact us for help. ©2016 The Washington Post, 1301 K St NW, Washington DC 20071