Features

Why the Book Isn’t Always Better than the Film

In adaptation, faithfulness to the source can be a good or bad thing… and so can radical reinvention.

The White Tiger (2021) was recently released on Netflix. Adapted from the Booker Prize-winning novel by Aravind Adiga, it’s an extremely well-put together film, directed by Ramin Bahrani. It features strong performances, an incisive, sardonic examination of India’s caste system rich/poor divide, and some profound insights into human ambition. The film’s every bit as good as the book, which got me thinking about how much cinema relies on literary adaptations. One often hears mutterings from literary types that film adaptations aren’t a patch on the books on which they are based. How often is that true?

As Good as the Booker

Other Booker adaptations that are equally good as films include The English Patient (1996) and Ang Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2011). The latter tells of zookeeper’s son Pi, a religiously open-minded boy who sees no issue with being a Hindu, Muslim, and Christian, all at the same time. His…