If you read the book and liked it, don't watch the movie!

Rating: 4/10 (28 September 2014)

I made the grave mistake of watching the movie after having read the book. I liked the book very much, because it explored the undertones of a world without children, the subtle ways in which it changes people. The book showed how different persons had different coping mechanisms and what that did to society as a whole. It also showed so many different facets of the same person, not just a tired nobody, like the movie made Faron out to be.
So I went into the movie having certain expectations which were never met. Characters were changed or added or subtracted. The relationships between characters were greatly modified. The main character had nothing but the name in common with the character in the book. The mother is not the same in the book. The Fishes are not anarchists, they're just a group of people who haven't stopped caring, like the rest of the world. The group leader is someone else. Jasper was not an old hippie who grew weed and lived in a hyperbolic world. Everything was messed up and backwards. The action was totally different from what happens in the book. So I would repeat my warning: if you read the book and liked it, don't watch the movie, you will be utterly disappointed!
I don't know if it was the bitter taste that made me watch this with very critical eyes, but I also found the acting pretty bad. Faron had no depth, his cousin had no credibility, Julian only seemed to be in it for the kicks, and don't get me started on Miriam, worst of all. I appreciated they hired a Romanian speaking actor to do the Romanian bit, it does taste authentic, though I did not like it that they felt the need for the gypsy in there in the first place. I did not like the shaky camera either, made me feel like I was watching a poorly budgeted documentary. The crying baby scene... dragged out and milked for everything it didn't have.
This might be the last time I watch a movie after having read the book, especially if I liked it.