I have this dramatized Audiobook of the novel so I'm totally going to be one of those "in the book they did it this way" kind of people (though I didn't read the book, technically).
I want to be fair though. I would have wanted it to be set in the '50s and entirely in black and white like I imagined it but you can't have everything.
Beginning in medies res is very inauspicious but these things have a way of bouncing back.
I don't think any of the characters in the book have survived at all. Not even the names (which I suppose is more respectable, considering). What irks me is how they seem to be trying to manufacture a campaign-worthy vision of diversity, which is fine, but even before everything kicks off they beat you over the head with the theme of maternity.
Newly married couple moving into new house *check*.
Officer with pregnant spouse *check*
Single mother *check*
Emotionally dependent adult daughter of aforementioned mother *check*
Orphanage *check*
Tormented young daughter of unscrupulous politician *and how*
The pacing is leisurely but now excruciatingly so. Over-all it's watchable enough but I do wish it were more retro.
It could have been a fair bit more subtle about its menace, for example, all the animals seem to know something's up before anyone else does. I'm not faulting the science but it's a played out trope.
The characters so far are very cookie-cutter but that psychiatrist has potential even if she really needs to improve her method of talking to children.
Get this: she's seeing a child patient (mother in the room, creepily) who tells her if she doesn't have all her plush toys in the right order "bad things" will happen.
I'm not a stickler for faithful adaptation but, golly, Wyndam has already done half the work for you, don't abandon him.
I want to be fair though. I would have wanted it to be set in the '50s and entirely in black and white like I imagined it but you can't have everything.
Beginning in medies res is very inauspicious but these things have a way of bouncing back.
I don't think any of the characters in the book have survived at all. Not even the names (which I suppose is more respectable, considering). What irks me is how they seem to be trying to manufacture a campaign-worthy vision of diversity, which is fine, but even before everything kicks off they beat you over the head with the theme of maternity.
Newly married couple moving into new house *check*.
Officer with pregnant spouse *check*
Single mother *check*
Emotionally dependent adult daughter of aforementioned mother *check*
Orphanage *check*
Tormented young daughter of unscrupulous politician *and how*
The pacing is leisurely but now excruciatingly so. Over-all it's watchable enough but I do wish it were more retro.
It could have been a fair bit more subtle about its menace, for example, all the animals seem to know something's up before anyone else does. I'm not faulting the science but it's a played out trope.
The characters so far are very cookie-cutter but that psychiatrist has potential even if she really needs to improve her method of talking to children.
Get this: she's seeing a child patient (mother in the room, creepily) who tells her if she doesn't have all her plush toys in the right order "bad things" will happen.
I'm not a stickler for faithful adaptation but, golly, Wyndam has already done half the work for you, don't abandon him.
