demigrl Review of The Survivors Club

The Survivors Club (2004 TV Movie)

Not the book, but well worth the time.

[8/10 · 30 January 2006]

After I saw this movie, I got the book out of library... Lisa Gardner is now my favorite author in the world. Her next book, GONE, comes out tomorrow, and I plan to be first in line. All in all, I thought the movie adaptation of The Survivors Club was quite good. Some of the major points of the plot were changed, and the ending was entirely different: the climax centers around Jillian and becomes a typical Hollywood scene, whereas in the book, the climax is more original and centered around Meg. And two of the women attacked in the movie were not, in the book, raped. However, these changes are understood; there is no way all of the complex twists and dives of Gardner's novel could make it into a two-hour movie. Some of the most powerful scenes in the book involve mind games and take place in the characters' heads, which obviously is hard to show on screen. And Roma Downey does an amazing job as Jillian; my high rating of this show is largely due to her performance, and I always see her now, when I read the book. So, Gardner fans, there will be differences. But it's still a good show, and I always love watching live characters tell a story that, till then, was only in the mind's eye.