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It’s not an unfair reaction to scoff or roll your eyes after hearing the words “the book was better” come out of someone’s mouth when speaking about a movie you enjoyed. It might sound pretentious, annoying, or like they’re trying to show that they think they’re superior to you because they’re so intellectually advanced to have chosen to read the book before watching the movie. Even as an avid reader myself who often reads the original book that a movie I liked was based on, I understand how this statement could be perceived by non-readers who generally prefer visual media.
However, I believe that the time-old debate between books and their movie adaptations is far more nuanced than the agreed-upon sentiment that the book is “better.” Books, a form of print media, and movies or TV shows, forms of broadcast media, use two completely different channels of mass communication. While books are nothing but words on paper left for the reader to digest and interpret, television programs are largely objective, as viewers are all watching the exact same thing on their screens. This leaves less leeway for people to interpret characters, events, and the narrative differently, which is an inevitable aspect of reading books.
A recent book-to-movie adaptation was the film People We Meet on Vacation on Netflix, based on Emily Henry’s popular 2021 romantic comedy novel. As an Emily Henry enthusiast since reading one of her very first romances, I was more than excited to see the visualization of the lovable yet complex characters and the signature witty banter that all of her books contain. Released just short of five years after its release, this adaptation was long-anticipated as Henry’s first work to be turned into a film.
I love all four of Henry’s novels that I’ve read, each for different reasons, but People We Meet on Vacation holds a special place in my heart. I recently reread it to prepare for my viewing of the movie, and it reminded me of just how rich and deep-rooted the lore was between the two protagonists, Poppy and Alex. People We Meet on Vacation follows the over a decade-long story of Poppy, a quirky, spontaneous travel writer, and her best friend-turned-lover Alex, a quiet English teacher with whom she has about three things in common. Throughout the book, the pair go on a sequence of adventures that they call their “summer trips,” each of them getting closer to concluding their dramatic slow-burn love story.
After watching the movie, my initial emotions were a mix of disappointment, confusion, and grief for what this work could have been. The film omitted so many crucial elements of the story, specifically the pivotal Croatia trip that the entire story of the book revolved around, and it just felt like they missed the point entirely. Even if this was just to simplify the amount of detail in the book, I feel like it was absolutely necessary to include certain things that make this story what it is. In addition to these central plot changes, I found myself comparing my precisely idealized versions of the characters’ personalities, quirks, and physical appearances, as well as the specific settings, dialogue, and scenes to the film’s rendition.
Here’s the thing: as a standalone movie, I thought the movie was just fine. It was a charming, reliable romcom with stellar acting, great screenplay, and high-quality production — maybe a bit of a cliche story, but still well-executed. But as an adaptation to lovers of the book, it was sadly a crushing letdown.
Upon further reflection, I realized that, especially because I had read it right when the movie came out, I had built up so much hope for the potential of the movie and got lost in my personal connection to the fictional world that I became immersed in while reading. It wasn’t anything about the movie per se that I disliked, but more so that it didn’t match up with my own expectations. Henry’s writing has a special way of characterizing so vividly and using chatty dialogue, often random and eccentric, to build a connection between the love interests that would truly be conceivable in real life. In People We Meet on Vacation, especially, the fast-paced conversational narrative between Poppy and Alex reflects the development of their long-standing relationship across the time jumps and leaves a series of inside jokes that the reader is in on, making the story that much more personal.
Overall, this adaptation brought me to the clarity that I generally prefer books to their adaptation, but only if I have read and enjoyed the book before, solely because of my parasocial relationship with the story that I had established beforehand. However, a screen adaptation that did it completely right, in my opinion, was Normal People on Hulu, based on Sally Rooney’s popular contemporary fiction novel. Although I personally love the book more just because of the additional depth and thematic elements it offers, I have never seen an adaptation that executed my vision so accurately and beautifully, portraying not only the exact events and settings of the story in precise detail but also intentional and complex characters and dynamics.
I also think it could go the other way around as well, if I had fallen in love with a show or movie and subsequently read the book. The connection between the art and the consumer is what matters most, disregarding the form of media it might manifest in. Either way, this experience taught me about the importance of storytelling through written media and how the beauty of reading is that, instead of passively watching, readers have the freedom of choosing their subjective interpretations of the same words printed on paper.