Memorable and moving, despite some changes from the novel

Rating: Null/10 (9 January 2004)

I was really excited about this movie coming out, and I actually read the book in the week prior to its opening so I could compare the two. I was not disappointed, however some of my favorite moments from the book were left out of the movie. On the other hand, I understand that Minghella had to leave out some things from Frazier's sweeping novel or we would have been in the theater for about six hours! I didn't even really have a problem with the alteration of plot surrounding Sally Swanger's character, since what Minghella seemed to do was basically transcribe the story of another brief character in the book onto her character. The only aspect of the movie that left me somewhat disappointed was the way in which Inman and Ada's romance was portrayed in its early stages. In the movie, they have more encounters prior to Inman's leaving than they do in the book, but many of those meetings seem to be missing the kind of magic present in certain scenes within the novel (i.e. the moment when Ada sits on Inman's lap beside the fire). But, the scene between Inman and Sara, the widow, was left pretty much untouched, (another of my favorite moments) and I thought it was wonderful. Also to Minghella's credit, I must say that I thought the scene where Ada goes to see Inman off to war was extremely well done. All in all, I thought it was a visually and thematically beautiful movie that stayed with me long after I left the theater.