Wonderful!

Rating: 9/10 (9 December 2012)

I decided to read Cormac McCarthys book before watching this movie adaptation, having been a big fan of his more recent novel The Road. I loved the book and ended up uncertain if I wanted to watch the movie as I it was hard to imagine the Coen brothers being able to do it justice. Overall though, I was impressed with their treatment of the story, both in following the text closely and in terms of playing out the author's intentions rather than undermining or erasing them.
Having said that, there are some real differences between the two which to me meant the film didn't quite deliver on the story in the way the book did. Most of these differences probably came from a need to keep the running time down, but personally I would have been happy for the movie to be an hour longer and to follow more of the subplots of the book. The most important of those differences for me:
â¢ In the book Carla Jean calls the coin toss incorrectly and Chigurh shoots her. They have pretty much the same conversation in both versions, but in the Coens version she refuses to call the toss forcing Chigurh to see it is he, not the coin, deciding her fate.
â¢ The book explains why we meet Chigurh in jail, saying he permitted himself to be captured "to see if I could extricate myself by an act of will". Later Chigurh describes this as a vain, foolish act. These facts are not in the movie.
â¢ The first hotel confrontation between Moss and Chigurh is altered in the movie; rather than punching out the lock and wounding Moss, Chigurh takes a key from the murdered receptionist and enters Moss' room, where a hiding Moss takes him captive at gunpoint, so they have a chance to see and know each other. Then Moss runs and the shootout begins.
â¢ In the book Chigurh delivers the recovered cash to a man he's never met before, and a conversation ensues. In the film it is fairly unclear who Chigurh works for, which makes his character hard to understand.
â¢ Where the film last sees Moss alive heading off to have a beer with a lady who calls to him from poolside at her hotel, the book has a whole subplot between him and a young female hitchhiker, to whom he gives money and advice. He actually dies because he puts down his gun when the Mexicans following him take her hostage. This was a big part of the development of the Moss character in the book, with it being clear that Moss was loyal to his wife and would not take advantage of the teenager even when propositioned, and afterwards the hanging question of what his wife would think when he was found dead in a motel with a teenage runaway.
Anyway, book versus film aside, this movie features some truly brilliant performances, and is an astounding achievement in storytelling and filmmaking. Wonderful!