Review of Norwegian Wood

Haruki Murukami's novel, 'Norwegian Wood', a tale of a young man painfully out of his emotional depth as remembered from middle age through a faint haze of wistful nostalgia, touches almost everyone who reads it. And Trang Ang Hung 's film is a mostly faithful rendering for the screen, with a delicate touch (although I was expecting the character of Midori to be just a little more wild, and unlike the demure stereotype of a Japanese woman). But for some reason, having previously read (and been duly entranced by) the book, I found the film mostly dull, and I don't think this can be entirely put down to having prior knowledge of the plot. Rather, the book is not just exquisitely sensitive in its writing, but also, surgically precise; and the movie captures only the first half of these qualities. Too often, we see an accurate sample of a relationship that, as described in the original, simply had more complexity than what we get to see in the film. Perhaps also, a film must make corporeal figures who in the book are the ghosts of memory. Read the novel, which is Murukami's best; but I don't think this work adds anything to it.