Hell Is Freezing Over Day/Twist Off Day/Carnaval (Mexico)
2008-01-31 @ 11:41 p.m.

We watched the first half of K-Pax today in class, and I kind of like the book better, and since it's not really one of the books in my library that really enthrall me, that's saying something about the movie. Caught Atonement today with Thong, and it was average. Very nice visuals, but you don't feel much for the characters at the end of the whole thing, except for Briony, whom it's hard not to sympathise with in the last 15 minutes. That said, I suspect this is again a case of the book being superior to the movie. As my Threadless tee proclaims, movies have been ruining the book since they started doing print-to-screen adaptations. I can't tell you for sure, because I hated Briony so much I never finished reading Atonement. Dan's always raving about it, so there ought to be some merit in it, and having seen the film, I admit that the denouement is elegant in its twist. Yet within half an hour of sitting down in the theatre, I fully remembered why I so disliked the book. The idea that a mere child can wreak such havoc in the lives of two people because of her petty jealousy and overactive imagination, it just strikes me as being absurd. Still, fiction is fiction, so I can hardly fault McEwan for writing it. I guess, ridiculous as it may sound, I can't read Atonement simply because I despise Briony, both for her deliberate lie to incriminate Robbie, and her subsequent attempt to atone for it by becoming a nurse, and ultimately, fictionally giving Cecilia and Robbie their happiness. In short, I find her behaviour cowardly. I know, it's a lot to feel for a fictional character, but Briony is just one of those characters that I can't stand, fictional or otherwise. All the time I was watching her, I wanted to reach into the film and give her a tight slap. Or two. Or three. It was only when Vanessa Redgrave came on as the aged Briony, dying of vascular dementia, that I regained some measure of sympathy for her, partly because her final lines were so poignant. That said, overall still not a movie worth paying to watch. Thank goodness I only paid $3.50 because the person at the counter screwed up, according to Thong.