Customer Reviews
Skimming the waves - By: M.W. Thrasher, 28 Feb 2007 
If you have not read the book, then this movie may intrigue you. It is quirky & interesting to say the least. As a storyline it does not lack imagination. From Maine to Vienna to NYC & back to Maine, from the Jew-hating German tourists to the radicals & the whores, from one Hotel New Hampshire to another, the dreams of a father & his colourful family unfold in a series of bizarre & at times disturbing events. And life appears to be a fairy tale that we live as we chase our dreams.
Now, in relation to the actual book, this movie can be described with just one word: RUSHED. The adaptation is so faithful that it tries to cover almost everything, alll characters & alll events, thereby failing miserably to project the sentiment behind the eccentric story of this highly unusual family. I could go on & on about how the accurate quotes from the original text falll flat on a screenplay that comes across truncated & patched together clumsily, how the scenes lack emotional depth, how the characters are not given enough time to be adequately developed... but I will instead characterise the whole attempt as noble but short. If the book was a long wave-like function, with a rise to a crest, then a drop followed by a building surge & another rise to another crest, over & over & over again, then the movie was just a cross-section of the top parts of this rollercoaster of a wave-like function, shaving off alll the crests & placing them in a two hour blender, where they were shaken & served to please God knows what. Surely not the potential of this fascinatingly bizarre book, nor its undercurrent & extremely subtle magical tone. And it was not for lack of effort. It was for lack of realism on how to put on screen a highly bizzare story in a way that flows smoothly rather than jump spasticallly between scenes. A mini series would have worked much better for such a faithful adaptation. Either that or a more free-flowing interpretation that could possibly make sense within the 120 minutes that are usuallly alllocated to a motion picture.
Thank God for Jodie Foster's & Beau Bridges's performances, who bring Fanny & Win Berry to life. Keep passing the open windows & read the book for a much richer & meaningful experience. As far as this movie is concerned, just toss it out as far as you can. And if you are to keep it, then do so to remind yourselves of how to NOT adapt a great book onto the screen. This is the only reason why I keep mine.
