The Movie Was Better

Usually, there's no question: the book was better.  Chronicles of Narnia?  The books were better.  Fellowship of the Ring?  The book was better.

But once in a while I run across a book/movie pairing where things run the other way.  So here they are--movies that actually improved the books they were based on.

#1 National Velvet

 

I loved this movie when I was younger, and I still enjoy it today.  A girl named Velvet takes a renegade horse and trains him to become a steeplechase champion, with the help of a mysterious drifter and the support of her family.  In the movie, the Brown family are decent, sweet people who love one another despite their faults, but if you read the book you will find them to be an unpleasant lot.  When I read the book, I didn't like any of the main characters and wasn't rooting for them at all. 

#2 Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Here's another of my childhood favorites.  It has great music and hilarious comedy, with a wild and wacky plot that includes plenty of romance, absurdity, and danger.  Aside from a creepy scene (which has only gotten creepier as I've gotten older) in which the Baron and Baroness Bomburst sing about how much they want to kill each other, it's a great family movie.  The book, on the other hand, is just creepy--as you might expect from the author, Ian Fleming, who penned the James Bond books.  While the suspense and absurdity are there, the fun is not.

#3 Divergent

Okay, there may well be some folks who disagree with me on this one.  I'm not saying that Insurgent or Allegiant were better as movies, but the first movie in the trilogy seemed a lot better than the book to me.  Tris in the book?  Didn't like her.  Tris in the movie?  Liked her a lot.  I think this was because while I really enjoyed the characters, world, and themes of Divergent I didn't think that Roth's prose did them justice.  Her writing style was clunky enough that I was constantly thrown out of the story.

#4 Mary Poppins

Here's another musical with Dick Van Dyke... despite his dreadful Cockney accent, he still makes everything better.  :)  The original book by Travers is okay, though her Mary is a very stern character, but the movie is just magical.  Despite not having seen it in years, I can still sing most of the songs.  I'm guessing that the new sequel, Mary Poppins Returns, will also be a huge improvement on the book of the same name.  In fact, I don't think it's based on the original story at all, which can only be a good thing.  The later books in the Mary Poppins series are some of the strangest things I've every read.  Go to the sky and meet the stars?  Okay, that's fine... very Madeline l'Engle... meet a bizarre version of God?  I could do without that.

Those are the ones I can recall off the top of my head.  What about you guys--are there any movies you've seen that are much better than the books?

The Rose and the Briar - Jill Stengl (Review)

Rosa is happy working as the head gardener at the magical Faraway Castle resort.  (Well, mostly happy.  Her inherited job of hiding the sleeping princess and brushing her hair always leaves her feeling mysteriously depressed.)  But when a new Magical Creature Controller is sent to Faraway Castle, Rosa can tell that he’s hiding his identity with an enchantment.  But he couldn’t possibly be a prince sent to wake the princess—could he?

The Rose and the Briar is the third book in Jill Stengl’s Faraway Castle series.  I’ve really enjoyed the others books in the series (especially the novella The Little Siren), but I think that this one is the best yet.  The setting and the ensemble of characters at the resort have come together nicely, and Rosa and Briar’s relationship really makes me smile.

High Points

This is Sleeping Beauty, but it’s Sleeping Beauty with several very large twists… probably the most obvious twist being the fact that the main character isn’t Sleeping Beauty or her destined hero.  Rosa is a sensible, hard-working woman who’s had to deal with a lot in her life but isn’t defeated by it.  She may not totally understand why she’s stuck on perpetual princess duty, but she still does it as best she can.  She also has a garden-full of fun sidekicks, from Flora the dog-rose to the irascible tiger lilies and a honey-loving topiary bear.

Briar is a good foil for Rosa.  While I’m not totally convinced by his backstory, he’s resourceful and clever and proactive.  Watching him slowly put together what’s really going on is a treat.

Caveats 

Rosa’s mental narration does refer to a previous encounter between her and Briar which we don’t see in R&B.  I’m guessing there’s another prequel novella coming (yay!) but in-story it’s a little disconcerting.

This is also the third time in the series we’ve gotten the “we met previously and were attracted to each other but didn’t say anything because we weren’t really introduced” trope for the hero and heroine.  That’s three out of three times.   While I agree that knowing each other for a longer time is good—certainly better than the instalove in a lot of older renditions of fairy tales—not all romances run the same way.  This trope worked really well for The Siren and the Scholar because the gap between when they met and when S&S happened was meaningful to the plot, but I don’t think that it was at all necessary for R&B.

Bottom Line

I really enjoyed this contemporary fantasy version of Sleeping Beauty; I’ll certainly read it again.  I’m really excited for the next book in the series, which is a new take on King Thrushbeard—a less well-known tale that I’ve always loved!

Find the Rose and the Briar here.

Find Jill Stengl here.