It’s a Book Review, It’s a Movie Review, it’s a rant! (The Vow)

I love to read, I love to watch movies and I’ve progressed in my adulthood that I will try to watch movies made from books with an open mind.  There are some exceptions, for instance I have never read “Gone With the Wind” but I’ve seen the movie about 20 times.  I’ve also not read all of the Harry Potter books (I do own them; but then I haven’t seen all the movies either) and I’ve never read Lord of the Rings or anything by Tolkien.  I’ll wait for you to pick yourself off the floor.

I used to have this rule that I never watched a movie if I’d read the book (or vice-versa) as I knew one or the other would disappoint me horribly.  As I’ve matured (snicker), I realize how difficult it is to translate the written word with all its subtleties, descriptors and imagery to the screen.  A great case in point is the Twilight series (which I’ve read in entirety, but have only seen the first three movies).  A book needs to provide everything for the reader:  the color, the sound, the emotions, the future, the past, the present of the story; a movie needs to only provide the visual and the audio for the viewer.

So, now to my reviews…

My friends wanted a Girls day out and we decided on a day, then a place to eat, then a time and finally which movie to see.  I have a friend whose convictions about entertainment are more honorable than mine, so, after reading the movie review  she decided she wouldn’t see the movie (read: she puts her morals into action, whereas I just watch what I like).  I completely support her convictions and her choices and well, she tolerates my lack of conviction.

The Movie Review

I didn’t even realize this was a movie “based on a true life story” until I read the review, but I have to admit to a LOT of skepticism because of my history with reading books made into movies and, well, see the first two paragraphs.  I basically went to see the movie because Channing Tatum was the actor and I like him.  Yeah, I’m a real movie critic with exacting principles of exceedingly high quality.  I’ll wait until you’re through laughing.

The movie was disappointing on so many levels that, even before I’d read the book, I was pretty sure that Hollywood had thrown out the best part of the story for ticket sales.  If you’d read the book first, you’d find that the only part of the story that remained the same was that the couple were married and in a car accident where she lost her memory of their relationship altogether.  That’s the sum total of what they took from the book and transmitted onto the screen.  End of movie review. 

Okay, not really.   I have a couple of bones to pick with the movie itself, beginning with my opinion that if you’re going to say the movie is “based on a true life story”, it really ought to closely resemble that true life story.  The movie changed the names of the main characters, the lifestyles of everyone, the location, the end result of the relationship and every positive feature of the main characters so that the movie was completely unrecognizable as the book.  But, of course, if you hadn’t read the book, you wouldn’t know that and you’d think it was a pretty good (not great) movie with a “real-life” ending.  I left the movie and came home to immediately order the book from the library.

The Book Review

The book is written by Kim and Krickett Carpenter with Dana Wilkerson and has over 180 pages including acknowledgements.  It’s a quick read, although a bit gruesome in the accident and some of the hospital sections.  The book in NO WAY resembles the movie.  I’ll say that again.  The book is not even a close approximation to the movie and it made me wonder, more than once, just what is so wrong with true love and happily ever after endings where the hero and the heroine stay together even though it’s tough.

Kimmer (Kim) Carpenter and Krickett Pappas met when Kim called to order a coaching jacket from the sportswear company she worked at.  They had a long-distance phone and letter relationship for months before actually meeting in person (before email and cell phones).  They focused on their relationship with each other and God first before they even talked about marriage.  They were married before they had sex.  Her parents like and respected him; Krickett had a great relationship with her family.  They make several references in the book about how they could not have made it through this struggle without God’s grace, the love of their families and the support of their friends.  They were both athletic, healthy, Christian young people who married and THEN moved in together.  They were married just a few weeks when they were in a car accident on their way to visit family for Thanksgiving.  Their passenger had minor injuries; Kim had cuts, back injuries and serious facial injuries while Krickett had to be extracted from the car and had extensive and long-term injuries to her body and her brain.  The remainder of the book deals with her rehabilitation and the challenges they faced as they had to re-build a forgotten relationship.  They remain married and have two children.  Sorry for the spoiler.

My Rant

  The movie showed us that Paige (Krickett) had a difficult and estranged relationship from her parents, who encouraged her to divorce Leo (Kim).  Paige’s father had an affair which was part of the tension in the family; but it’s glossed over as her mother chose to stay with her faithless husband no matter what – completely inconsistent with the message to their daughter on the subject of staying married to her “stranger” husband.  Leo and Paige do divorce in the movie, which I found very disturbing as Paige’s attitude was that even if Leo knew they were married, she just didn’t want to make the effort to remember him as a part of her life.  The movie ends with Paige and Leo going a date to create new memories instead of trying to remember the old ones, but it was a sad alternate to the beauty of the reality of the genuine story.  

In real life, many of us struggle with our marriages and, although our struggles don’t involve a near-fatal accident or life-altering events, we believe in the sanctity of that vow and find a way to make it work, just like the real-life Kim and Krickett.  This movie was just one more way that Hollywood tries to legitimize their blackened morality by making it okay to give up when the going gets rough because life should be easy, simple and fun.  

My recommendation

Skip the movie, read the book.