Review of Shining Through

I don't know how I missed this movie when it came out: I love the Susan Isaacs book which I've read several times. I'm glad I saw it, I like Melanie Griffith's voice and I think she makes a good job out of a rather awkward script. The plot is substantially modified in rapport to the book; Linda's first marriage disappears, Ed Leland is not such a complex or endearing character. But the thing which really annoys me is that Isaacs took great pains in the book to describe the class differences between Linda and her employers (she would NEVER have been so impertinent) and the training she undergoes before going into Berlin; which, harsh as it is, she underlines makes her little more than an amateur. Plus the language difficulties and the fact that Linda in Berlin would never have told anybody she was 1) American 2) a Jew. Also a cook in a large household with several kitchen maids under her does NOT serve at table herself. In short, inconsistencies all over the place: if the Americans had been that sloppy, they would never have won the war.