In comparison with the book, the film is in a scale from 1 to 10 a 3. On a good day a 5. In my opinion, for someone who has read the book and analysed it, it will be easy to see all the awful flaws in the characters interpretation and actions. The hole set is nicely developed and explored, but a few details (in Hanna's apartment for example) don't actually match with the characters personality. The book has a high quantity of symbols and metaphors and they are almost not shown in the film at all. The importance of small details like Walter constantly shaving in the book is superficially explored in the movie. Walter's disgust to Nature isn't shown at all! I think the movie could be more exciting. The plot has every spice it needed to be really great. Maybe if the actresses could have been better chosen, since Ivy is just to old, Hanna at the end just too young.. Only Sabeth fits perfectly into her role. Congratulations to Julie Delpy, for once again performing so beautifully. About Walter: Walter's interpretation of the role is unreal and unfaithful to the book. In the film Walter is a man full of charm, seductive and caring. Where is all the distance, cold-heartiness of the book's character..? The control-freak, the workaholic character? While having sex with Ivy, Walter usually thinks about planes and turbines, but in the movie he is an amazing lover. Hanna's importance in Walter's love life is also not given enough importance. In the book walter says that only with Hanna wasn't sex absurd. She was afterall, the true love of his life. The End of the film is an open ending, in the book Walter eventually dies with Cancer, after a huge change in his vision of the world. His relation towards nature totally mutates. He becomes a different man. Important details such as symbols that warn Walter about Sabeth's death (and his own death as well) are inexistent in the film.
But in an overall, and ignoring the fact that i've read the book by Max Frisch.. I've rated the film with 6 points, knowing how old it is, and how the budget might have been, it's a nice Sunday-afternoon film, that let's you reflect about destiny.
But in an overall, and ignoring the fact that i've read the book by Max Frisch.. I've rated the film with 6 points, knowing how old it is, and how the budget might have been, it's a nice Sunday-afternoon film, that let's you reflect about destiny.