Books vs. Movie Adaptations: A Series of Unfortunate Events
Monday, September 12, 2011 | By LMcCauley | 2 Comments
Hi, I’m LMcCauley, the newest employee at the West Chester Public Library! I’m very excited to be here and to have the opportunity to contribute to this blog!
With a movie adaptation of The Help becoming the top movie at the box office for three weeks in a row, and excitement over The Hunger Games movie getting released next spring, I thought it would be fun to look at other books that have been adapted into films in the past, and determine whether they were good or bad. My favorite books are the Harry Potter novels, but I’d rather not look at them because I love them so much that I’d probably just pick apart at every little change that the movies made!
Instead, I decided to re-watch an adaptation of my second favorite book series when I was growing up: A Series of Unfortunate Events. This is a pretty unusual group of children’s books about three orphans, the Baudelaires, who get sent to various guardians after their parents are killed in a fire that destroys their mansion. If that wasn’t enough, they are constantly pursued by a villainous man named Count Olaf, who wants to steal the fortune they will inherit. Every book starts out with a warning by the narrator that the story is going to be “extremely unpleasant” and the books almost never end on a happy note, but they are surprisingly entertaining as the Baudelaires move from house to house, avoiding Count Olaf and eventually stumbling on to a mystery that involved their parents.
There are a total of thirteen books in A Series of Unfortunate Events, so adapting each of them into movies would already be a difficult feat to accomplish. So the filmmakers decided to combine the first three books into one movie. Surprisingly, it works very well. The plots of each novel obviously needed to be condensed, but the changes that were made do not detract from the unique spirit of the books. The script recreates the same style and tone of the story with narration by Jude Law, who plays the author, Lemony Snicket. Much like the books, he will often warn the audience to stop watching the movie, or say something like, “And they all lived happily ever after. The End. How I wish I could type that.” The set designs and costumes are also gorgeous and look very similar to Brett Helquist’s illustrations. And of course, there’s also the presence of Jim Carrey, who plays Count Olaf. This might have seemed like a bizarre decision to fans of the book, because Olaf is such a menacing character, but he is also pretty outlandish and even comedic at times. And in some cases, such as the scenes where Olaf is disguised as a scientist named Stefano, Carrey is just so funny that I actually preferred his version to the book’s!
Kids who love A Series of Unfortunate Events might dislike the differences between the movie and the books at first, but overall, the filmmakers show a lot of respect for the story they adapted and it’s a lot of fun to watch! I’d recommend this movie to anyone who already enjoys the series or has considering giving them a try.
Hi, L, one of your fellow library goddesses just wanted to say “Great job” on the blog post. I confess to never having read one of the “Unfortunate Events” books, but perhaps I should. I’ll look forward to hearing more from you!
Thank you, Meg! I definitely recommend the books; it’s a very interesting series. I’m glad you liked the post; I’m looking forward to writing more!