Review of East of Eden (1955) by Waeza A — 16 Jan 2013

Though the film had some good attributes, it did not do justice to the book. James Dean did a nice job of depicting Cal and I thought the cinematography was well done. The bar scene where you see the two brothers positioned one behind the other after the mob fight was especially great.

There was a comic book/cartoonish quality to that scene that I thought was really interesting. The last scene was touching. Beyond this, the movie was a really poor representation of the book. Abra's character was especially completely miscast.

While she is supposed to have a 'mature' personality, her maturity is not as one dimensional as it was represented. Her demeanour in the film was so over the top earnest and wholesome that I found her to be an incredibly irritating character that lacked depth.

She is a much more complex character in the book and this did not show through in the movie at all. Cathy Ames (the mother) should have been much more devilish in character. She never justifies why she is the way she is so blatantly in the book as she does in the film.

Cathy is a far more interesting character than simply a cut throat business woman as she is portrayed in the film. Cal and Aaron's relationship was treated very superficially. Their connection is characterized by both love and hate, yet the movie did not do a fair job of depicting this ambivalence.

In contrast to the movie, the theme of jealousy in the book is a lot more subtle and underlying yet just as destructive. The movie was unable to capture the seething quality of the emotion. Cal never blatantly says he is jealous, he just is and its something he torturously struggles with.

Also, Cal and Abra never get together romantically until after Aaron goes to war. The only borderline non-platonic encounter that he and Abra have prior to this time, is when Cal whispers something dirty in her ear when they are children.

One of the biggest problems with the movie is that they left out one of the central characters --Lee-- the Chinese care taker and friend of the family. Lee is such a pivotal character in the book that I was shocked that he was included in the film.

Overall, I could not get myself to like the movie too much. Perhaps my opinion of the film would have been different had I not read the book.