The major loss has been a real understanding of Durrell's spiritual journey. We are only given occasional bits of wisdom picked up here and there rather than a sense of a continuing search for a personal philosophy. One would have thought they could have fit more of that into two hours and ten minutes. John Byrum, the director, does not do very much to pull it all together. He doesn't have any real vision, it seems, of how The Razor's Edge should progress.
Some sequences are rather well done, others less so.
A bit in the war sequences about denigrating lost comrades to ease the pain falls completely flat on a combination of writing, directing, and acting, the collective responsibility for which is totally Byrum's and Murray's, since they also wrote the script. Other sequences fail in other manners. The pacing of the first two thirds of the film is rather slow, as well, though it picks up a little towards the end. Paris looks unextraordinary and India far less beautiful and interesting than many other filmmakers have made it. Partial blame goes to the cinematographer, whose name I do not have before me at the moment, but who, under the circumstances, would surely not mind anonymity.