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Big Fish: The Novel vs. The Film
By Matt Margolis | September 18, 2007
I have always believed that when novels are adapted for film, the film version would always be the inferior version. I have recently finished Big Fish by Daniel Wallace and found myself not liking it nearly as much as I like the movie.
Some things do carry over from the novel to the book, but they are largely different. In the novel, Edward Bloom, the main character who’s life is retold in his wild tales and stories, has a good relationship with his son William, who narrates the book. In the movie, the Ed and William were estranged as a result of William being fed up with his father’s constant storytelling. William comes home after three years of not speaking to his father when his father’s death is imminent, and hopes to learn “the truth” about his father before he dies, and the movie goes through the romanticized life of Edward Bloom, regularly returning to the present as William struggles to get anything resembling the truth from his dying father.
The movie has a good rhythm to it. The stories of Edward’s life flow together in the movie, but feel a bit disjointed in the book. And, while in the novel, William does have similar frustrations with his father’s tale-telling, the decision of the screenwriter to change the nature of the father-son relationship strengthened the purpose of the overall story as William’s attempt to learn the truth about his father ultimately leads him to appreciate stories that have become who his father is.
Since the movie ranks as one of my favorites, I was hoping/expecting the novel would be counted as one of my favorite novels. While I still enjoyed the book, it didn’t quite achieve what I had hoped.
Topics: Fiction |
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