So I went to see the movie...

[readerjane]

I went in with the goal of judging whether this movie could stand on its own. I knew it would be impossible to watch it without constantly drawing parallels to the book, but since nothing could replicate the movie-in-my-head, I figured the best success the film could have would be to be a worthwhile experience on its own behalf.

Overall, I have to say it doesn't stand well on its own. There were funny moments and cute moments and a couple of mildly exciting moments. But would I go back to watch a TFTD movie if I'd never loved the books? Never been completely immersed in Plum fandom? Probably not.

With the books as background, I could fill in a lot of detail, but for someone coming to the movie fresh, I think the culture of the Burg and the reasons why various characters did what they did would be pretty thinly drawn.

In the book what started the ball rolling was Benito Ramirez' psychotic descent. Jimmy Alpha had invested years coaxing this talented boxer toward a star career. The talent had taken his entitlement and whatever anger fueled him and had turned into a monster who couldn't even use self-preservation as motivation to control himself. Jimmy was desperately trying to hold things together, making victims disappear so Benito could keep competing in the ring. Everyone on Stark Street knew you stayed away from Ramirez or you died. It all exploded when vice cop Joe Morelli tried to protect his informant and wound up charged with murder himself, went FTA, then got targeted by his former fling who was out of work and desperate for the bond recovery money.

The movie's Ramirez isn't that scary. He's big and tattooed and violent, but you never get that sense of the cobra behind the eyes that Janet described. Lula doesn't seem afraid of him. Even when Ramirez beats Lula and dumps her out of his car, she's not nearly as badly injured as she was in the book. Ramirez stalks movie!Stephanie, but you don't have those heart-pounding moments where Steph listens to him breathe on the other side of her apartment door. So the danger just isn't there. The only person with the sense to stay clear of Ramirez is Lula's fellow hooker Jackie, and Jackie seems more pissed than afraid when Lula insists on talking to Stephanie.

I dunno whose idea it was to cast Jason O'Mara as Joe Morelli, but that person probably sunk this film. O'Mara is a good-looking guy, but he's 42 years old and looks it. He is not a wild child with just enough of the rough edges worn off to succeed as an undercover cop. This guy could play the Morelli of Explosive Eighteen, chugging Maalox and waiting for Bob to hork up Stephanie's underwear. Not OFTM Joe.

Interestingly, the movie does not make Joe as repellent as the trailer did. I remember being surprised when the trailer first came out, because I had assumed the filmmakers would try to make Joe an appealing character. In the trailer we saw all of Joe's worst attributes: his taunting, his crassness. That was somewhat smoothed out in the movie.

When I first read OFTM, I was intrigued at the contrast between the three main men: Morelli the bad boy, Ranger the badder boy and Ramirez the monster. Each of them breaks the rules for different reasons and to different extremes. Holding them up to each other gives you a lot of perspective on how a man can choose to live outside the lines and how that changes him. That parallel was missing in the movie.

The filmmakers chose to update OFTM enough to give the characters cell phones. I think that was a good move. Keeping the story in the 90s would have made it a period piece. Bringing it into the present day meant they had to come up with some creative ways to make characters incommunicado when necessary, but they handled that well.

Katherine Heigl did fine as Stephanie. I had my doubts when she was cast, but I couldn't find any fault with her performance.

It's the complex network of relationships around Stephanie that I felt was lacking. There was one nice touch where Steph waved and called hello to some kids playing in her parents' neighborhood, but other than that I didn't get the strong feel of someone who knows everybody; knows the gossip and the resources that surround her wherever she goes. Book!Stephanie is not physically strong, brainy or talented, but she does have a superpower. She connects with people.
When her keys are in a dumpster, she knows someone with a backhoe. When she can't get a TV remote to work, she calls her high school classmate who runs the appliance shop. I didn't see that here.

Connie was perfectly Connie. Vinnie wasn't slimy enough. Eddie Gazarra somehow got a promotion and an office; I think just so he could have private conversations with Steph at work.

The filmmakers did Grandma a disservice. What makes Grandma Mazur so appealing is that she has a Lula-sized personality in a tiny, scrawny, wrinkled-up body. Debbie Reynolds doesn't come across as someone who buried herself in the role of Burg housewife for forty years and now, in her widowhood, is throwing off the shackles and going for the gusto. My Grandma Mazur will forever be Estelle Getty. I'm sorry this movie didn't get made while Estelle was still around to play the part.

Y'know who I was most disappointed in? Angie Morelli. This is a woman whom Stephanie is afraid of: not because she can lay curses like her mother-in-law, but because she's the perfect housekeeper just like Stephanie is not. Movie!Angie looked ordinary. She sounded like any woman worried about her grown son. She wasn't intimidating. When she caught sight of the gun in Stephanie's purse, Angie didn't say "I'm going to call your mother right now," bringing the full weight of Burg disapproval to bear.

BUT WHAT ABOUT RANGER? Of course to me he's going to be the most important part.

Daniel Sunjata did fine. I would have enjoyed hearing Ranger's big belly laugh in the coffee shop when Stephanie first tells him she's going after FTA Morelli, but we didn't get that. Also missed one of my favorite lines in OFTM, when Lonnie Dodd had shot Ranger with the gun he grabbed from Steph. Ranger told Stephanie, "I haven't been taking you serious enough." It's that moment when he really becomes her mentor.

I think the Ranger scenes in the movie take up a bigger portion of the screen time than the Ranger scenes in the book. Not sure whether this is because the filmmakers were trying to play to the Babe fanbase or because it's just hard to portray an on-screen character as tersely as Janet writes Ranger. Either way, I was glad of the extra moments. Sunjata is definitely a pleasure to look at.

Some reviewers have said they see chemistry between the movie's Steph and Ranger. I didn't see it -- not yet, but seriously, how many of us were shipping Steph and Ranger in book 1? I did see potential, though.

I think, if the writers and directors had been willing to stray further from the novel, they could have made a better film. That may be heresy, but I think it's true. Visual stories need different things than textual stories do. They did pare down one of the book's four FTAs: drunk Clarence Sampson, and that was a good move.

Know what was great about the movie? The credits. I hate to say this 'cause it's damning with faint praise, but those opening credits were awesome. Perfectly Plum.

Comments

[summersdream.livejournal.com]

My husband shocked the hell out of me the other day when the promo came on and he was like "Hey, want to go see that?"

Cue me staring at him then launching into the Million Reasons Why Not. Most important being that I cast Ranger in my head a long time ago and just cannot unsee it. Maybe when it's on DVD?

I figured the filmed in Pennsylvania thing was a red flag but the two-second showing of Grandma Mazur shooting the turkey convinced me that they probably didn't have the right actress/writing for her and that would be sad.

Not seeing it, I already am sure I'll end up agreeing with you that they probably should have deviated more from the book to make a better movie. I always point to Prisoner of Azkaban on that theory- it's imo the best of the HP movies as a movie and I sort of wish they'd run with that for the rest of the series. I rewatch PoA and I never rewatch the others.

Also, it would be hella challenging to write a character as terse as Ranger unless you found the perfect actor who could do wordless expressions 95% of the time, I think... and you'd probably lose a lot of the audience. Easier to give him some more lines and not risk confusing everyone.

All that said, Hubs is probably going to drag me to see this for date night becuase it's this or Underworld and I am not yet over The Werewolves of Mordor... um. Rise of the Lycans. Gag.