Proof of Life: The book vs. the movie Part II

Part I Here



I rewatched "Proof of Life" the film and the book drew connections between characters and turned a good yet flawed film into a spectacular narrative. It feels like the author of the book reverse engineered the script to make it appear as though this 3-star movie came from a 4-star source. 

Case in point: In one scene near the beginning of the film, protagonist Alice Bowman is at a party with her husband before he's eventually kidnapped by a Colombian paramilitary faction (the plot of the story) and one of the two ballroom dancers takes her hand and asks her to dance. 

In the book, it's explained that she takes his invitation because she's been feeling distant from her husband as he's gotten more involved with his work and when he starts getting enraptured in the conversation, she partially accepts the dance invitation from the stranger because she wants to make her husband notice her more. 

It's later revealed that the person who asked her to dance is actually the hostage negotiator leading a double life and Russell Crowe's character, Terry Thorne, suspects that he was planted at the party to get a better read on the couples. 

That's a twist that's not covered in the book. 

Additionally, the dynamics of the Alice-Terry relationship is changed once you read the book. The story presents a very interesting love triangle in that Terry is fully committed to saving Alice's husband and the plot is about Alice and her husband reuniting but there's a strong relationship that's also developing between Terry and Alice and neither one of these two relationships of Alice are treated as invalid or wrong in the face of the other. In the movie, a forbidden kiss at the end is what all the sexual tension leads up to. In the book, that sexual tension is expanded on and it's revealed that Terry had those rather instant feelings for her the moment he saw her and had to consciously fight them off the whole time even when he's giving the outward appearance that he cares about his job. 

One thing that makes the film weaker in comparison to the book is Meg Ryan.  Alice is too complex of a character- her conflicting feelings towards two men, her determination, her sense of quiet fear-for anyone but the best of actresses to portray. When Alice Bowman expresses cautious surprise at Terry's arrival or when she says her penultimate line "You have to know how much you mean to me, you know that", neither of those moments are sufficiently convincing. At the same time, my opinion of the adaptation would surely be changed with a better actress.

The film makes it seem like Russell Crowe locked lips with Meg Ryan pretty much because he's Russell Crowe and she's Meg Ryan and that's what they inevitably do. The drama behind that kiss (and a one night stand that's added to the book and better explains why the kiss isn't accompanied by conversation) isn't fully realized in the book because it doesn't explain that Crowe broke his own code for her and what was at stake for him. 

Of course that's inevitable since books can more easily fill in inner monologue, but that's better served here. 

Bottom line:
I'm not suggesting that all books are better than movies: I'm obviously a movie person. I AM suggesting that THIS book is better than the movie despite the bias against it since it came after the film. 

Open question: Does a novelization of a film count as a novel?

On a recent episode of "The Mindy Project" (note to self: make sure your next blog post does not accidentally relate to The Mindy Project), Mindy is making small talk with an intelligent teenage girl in her apartment building and asks her what she's reading. The teenage girl is reading Jonathan Franzen (my outsider status to the literary world is apparent here as I have to ask Jonathan who?) while Mindy sheepishly replies that she's reading a novelization of the book "Iron Man." The implied joke here is that novelizations are a cheap form of literature.

I just found myself in the same conundrum. After feeling so proud of myself for finishing the novel "The Paperboy" (and blogging about it here), I went in search of another novel for all the same grandiose reasons that anyone has when they decide to turn off the TV and try reading instead: I wanted to be cultured, I wanted a greater intellectual challenge, and I wanted to lengthen my attention span.

The book "Proof of Life," based on a 2000 film about the kidnapping and ransom industry in South America, was already on my bookshelf and looked immensely promising: It was based on a film I'd seen and it was about something interesting. The book was riveting until I discovered halfway through that this wasn't the novel that the film was based on. Instead, this was a novelization of the movie. The front of the book reads "A novel by David Robbins...Based on the Screenplay by Tony Gilroy." Am I an idiot or what?


So the big question is: Are the intellectual riches I would have gotten from reading a novel still valid now that I know I'm reading a novelization? Am I still reading a novel?

Responses when I asked this on the IMDB Message Board:

• "Counts as a novel, just not necessarily a good one." -BloodVVank
• "Technically, yes. Intellectually, no." -Shantytown1212
• "If film adaptations of novels count as films, then novel adaptations of films count as novels." -GrimlocksNewBrain
• "Someone wrote it to the best of their ability - I say yes!" -Chason_S
• "They may not be great works of literature, but it's still reading a novel. An author spent quite a bit of time writing it after all." -Unwantedaddress
• "Sounds like you're reading for all the wrong reasons." -Dio52
• "Does reading the Cliff Notes count as readng the book?" -Dolfanatic313
• "I didn't even know those still existed, seemed like an 80's thing to me, but I don't see why it wouldn't count as reading a book. It probably won't count as reading a good book, and probably won't make you necessarily more "cultured", but " -Shagrroten