Review of Norwegian Wood (2010) by Diana L — 04 Jan 2014

This book is one of my favorite novels I've ever read. I adore every word. In truth, before seeing the film, I had heard most fans were disappointed...and I was definitely among them. I'll start with the good: the acting is superb as is the cinematography and scenery.

The characters are played whole heatedly and in turn, there was still some magic in the film. The music was also lovely, however I wish so much that they would have put in the music Murakami talks about in the book.

It would have added much more to the experience. Other than these few things, I have to say, I was very underwhelmed. I don't blame it all on the movie...it would have to be 5 hours long to fit the whole story.

What was upsetting was which things they took out, changed, and left out. If I had never read the book, I'm pretty sure I would have had hardly any idea what was going on. It's like they took snippets of the novel and melded them together.

The most upsetting were the scenes with Midori. She seemed like just another girl that he knew when in reality, her character is much deeper. Also Reiko. The way they portrayed her character at the end was so disappointing since they changed her reasoning and didn't go into her story in the middle of the film.

It is so far less meaningless than it really is. The ending as well, the changes were unneeded and almost dumbed this down to just another sad love story, when in reality it's soooo much more. I adore the actors.

They gave their hearts and souls and made the film moving enough, but I wish it would have been more thorough and everything I wanted instead of an altered clip show.