Maybe if I had seen the movie before I read the book, I would have liked this better. The book "Father's Arcane Daughter" was one of my favorite books when I was growing up. So when I heard that they were making a movie of it (even if it was only a TV movie), I looked forward to it with eagerness.
Then I heard that they had changed the title to, "Caroline?" And I knew right away that it was going to be a mistake.
What's in a name, you ask? Well, imagine if "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" had been entitled, "Erasing Our Memories," and you will get an idea of how pointless it is to change the title of "Father's Arcane Daughter" to "Caroline?"
Yes, that title change told me right away that the producers and the director belonged to that infamous Hollywood group of "elbow-joggers," the kind of cynics who think that the audience is not intelligent enough to understand what the film is about unless they remind the audience (in small words) at every opportunity. It showed that the telewriters and director did not realize that they could easily have gotten the point of the film across just by writing and directing the movie well.
Now, enough with the title, and onto my issues with the movie itself: I know that a movie is not supposed to be an EXACT translation of the book to film, and while they didn't make that many glaring changes to the story, they did make a lot of little changes that served no real purpose.
(NOTE: The event in the film discussed in the following paragraph is not really a spoiler, since you learn all about it approximately 15 minutes into the movie)
One of the small, but crucial, elements of the story they botched was making Caroline supposed to have died "in an airplane crash," not in a botched kidnapping that turned into a shootout. Now, in theory that is a rather small change, but it really cripples one of the main points of the drama the excuse that Grace used to shield the kids away from the outside world: The fear of another kidnapping. If Caroline just died in a simple plane crash, the drama between many of the characters is either severely altered, or no longer makes any sense whatsoever. Oh, and it meant they had to change a whole lot of things in the ending as well, but I won't go into that.
Then, half of the supporting cast is ridiculously underused, and the cursory appearances by their characters seem to me to just be thrown in for cameos, to make the people who liked the book go, "Hey, that's him/her!" Almost all of the side plots are ruined by this cursory handling, which brings me to my biggest problem with the film: *It makes the "is she Caroline or not" mystery the focus of the story!* That, more than anything, shows that the filmmakers either A: did not get the book at all, or B: They just wanted to appeal to the lowest common denominator by making a cheap mystery pseudo-thriller instead of a character drama (I don't know which would be worse).
The movie is not all bad. It's hard to ruin a story like this, especially with the great performances by Jenny Jacobs (she stole the show), and the late Shawn Pelham. But Stephanie Zimbalist was an absurd choice for Caroline. Although she does manage to keep the sultriness in check a little for this role, they should still not have had a flavor-of-the-month TV babe playing Caroline, that was just contrived bring-in-the-viewers casting. Now, she wasn't horrible, in fact at some times I quite liked her, but in the last few scenes she starts spouting this new-age, "You can be whatever you want to be" dialogue in this overly sage- like, motherly tone, and that just got on my nerves.
I liked Pamela Reed's performance a little (although she did seem a little too frenetic), but not George Grizzard, he just seemed forced. And by the way, what's with changing Charles' name to "Paul?" What purpose did that serve?
*shrugs* Well, let me sum it up: If you've never read the book (or any book by E. L. Konigsburg), you'll probably love this movie.
Then I heard that they had changed the title to, "Caroline?" And I knew right away that it was going to be a mistake.
What's in a name, you ask? Well, imagine if "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" had been entitled, "Erasing Our Memories," and you will get an idea of how pointless it is to change the title of "Father's Arcane Daughter" to "Caroline?"
Yes, that title change told me right away that the producers and the director belonged to that infamous Hollywood group of "elbow-joggers," the kind of cynics who think that the audience is not intelligent enough to understand what the film is about unless they remind the audience (in small words) at every opportunity. It showed that the telewriters and director did not realize that they could easily have gotten the point of the film across just by writing and directing the movie well.
Now, enough with the title, and onto my issues with the movie itself: I know that a movie is not supposed to be an EXACT translation of the book to film, and while they didn't make that many glaring changes to the story, they did make a lot of little changes that served no real purpose.
(NOTE: The event in the film discussed in the following paragraph is not really a spoiler, since you learn all about it approximately 15 minutes into the movie)
One of the small, but crucial, elements of the story they botched was making Caroline supposed to have died "in an airplane crash," not in a botched kidnapping that turned into a shootout. Now, in theory that is a rather small change, but it really cripples one of the main points of the drama the excuse that Grace used to shield the kids away from the outside world: The fear of another kidnapping. If Caroline just died in a simple plane crash, the drama between many of the characters is either severely altered, or no longer makes any sense whatsoever. Oh, and it meant they had to change a whole lot of things in the ending as well, but I won't go into that.
Then, half of the supporting cast is ridiculously underused, and the cursory appearances by their characters seem to me to just be thrown in for cameos, to make the people who liked the book go, "Hey, that's him/her!" Almost all of the side plots are ruined by this cursory handling, which brings me to my biggest problem with the film: *It makes the "is she Caroline or not" mystery the focus of the story!* That, more than anything, shows that the filmmakers either A: did not get the book at all, or B: They just wanted to appeal to the lowest common denominator by making a cheap mystery pseudo-thriller instead of a character drama (I don't know which would be worse).
The movie is not all bad. It's hard to ruin a story like this, especially with the great performances by Jenny Jacobs (she stole the show), and the late Shawn Pelham. But Stephanie Zimbalist was an absurd choice for Caroline. Although she does manage to keep the sultriness in check a little for this role, they should still not have had a flavor-of-the-month TV babe playing Caroline, that was just contrived bring-in-the-viewers casting. Now, she wasn't horrible, in fact at some times I quite liked her, but in the last few scenes she starts spouting this new-age, "You can be whatever you want to be" dialogue in this overly sage- like, motherly tone, and that just got on my nerves.
I liked Pamela Reed's performance a little (although she did seem a little too frenetic), but not George Grizzard, he just seemed forced. And by the way, what's with changing Charles' name to "Paul?" What purpose did that serve?
*shrugs* Well, let me sum it up: If you've never read the book (or any book by E. L. Konigsburg), you'll probably love this movie.