For voracious readers, great book-to-movie adaptations are a godsend. That book you fell in love with has so much emotional weight that the characters feel like extensions of yourself. If the director, screenwriter, and cast can wring the truth out of the original story, it will do ultimate justice to the original author, your own memories, and the joy you find in that story. A troubled family (like the father and daughter in The Tender Bar), a new take on an old Australian classic (The Drover’s Wife), or competing to be the most ruthless real estate agent on the planet. From book to screen, these adaptations, such as Despicable Men (Glengarry Glen Ross), make for fascinating viewing. And if someone asks, of course, tell them you read the book first.
The Tender Bar
The combination of popular memoir George Clooney and Ben Affleck promises a lot. And while The Tender Bar is indeed Affleck’s best performance, his talents as a skilled theater actor are often overlooked in favor of his personal celebrity. Clooney is known for his acting skills, but he can easily transition into a director’s role and bring out the best in his cast. J.R. Mehringer’s 2005 memoir of the same name centers on his childhood on Long Island, New York in the 1970s. Abandoned by his father, young J.R. (Tye Sheridan) treats his uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck) as a father figure, and despite his many flaws, including being a barfly, Charlie accepts J.R.’s natural instincts. He is the only person who recognizes his writing talent. . Lily Rabe is wonderful as J.R.’s mother, Dorothy. Dorothy worries that if her son continues to hang out with Charlie at the bar, he will follow in the footsteps of his dead father. The tenderness between Charlie and his nephew becomes the intense center of this story when she falls ill and leaves JR without her biological parents. Clooney has enlisted Academy Award-winning screenwriter William Monaghan (The Departed) to adapt Mehringer’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Although some critics felt the film lacked momentum and thrust, it was worth taking the time to explore the mundane and universal relatability of love, grief, abandonment, and independence in this fast-paced world. It’s a luxury to have a movie that makes you remember this.
“The Tender Bar” is currently available on SBS On Demand.
Drover’s wife
George Clooney is a master of multitasking, but we all have people close to us who are also great multitaskers. If writer, actor, and director Leah Purcell is going to show up, we should all be there, too. The acclaimed 2021 reinterpretation of Henry Lawson’s 1892 short story, also titled The Drover’s Wife, follows Purcell’s 1893 rendition of the relentlessly misogynistic New South Wales She plays Molly Johnson in In 2016, Purcell performed the story based on Lawson’s short story. With the same name, it switches the perspective to Molly and makes her more than just a supporting character to Lawson’s heroic driver. In Purcell’s stories, Molly is the protector of home, family, and business. She is also the first to show sympathy for Yadaka (Rob Collins), a local Aboriginal man who is demonized by the local police. Molly gives him a job and a place to live, making herself a target for both the police and local drivers. It’s a dark look at Australian history, tearing Lawson’s mythical hard-working, hard-drinking heroic driver to shreds. Brave and bold, Purcell’s modern Australian masterpiece.
“Drover’s Wife” is now available on SBS On Demand.
Confessions of Felix Krull
Speaking of masterpieces, German author and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Thomas Mann left his 1954 novel The Confessions of Felix Krull without an ending, and even after Mann’s death in 1955, the novel remained unfinished. It was left as is. The main character, Krul, is a playboy who plays with women and is probably a predecessor to Tom Ripley (the Talented Mr. Ripley). Krul cleverly avoids military service in his homeland of Germany and hurries to France to deceive a wealthy victim whose identity he subsumes into a service job. Krul is a spoiled brat with an arrogant and sinister personality. The story has been adapted into two films and a TV series over the decades, the latest being this version directed by Detlef Back. Jannis Niewehner (The New Look, Napoleon, Ye Swiss Karl) is a classy and charming crawler. His unwitting accomplice, the Marquis de Venosta (David Cross), is his noble doppelganger. The luxurious surroundings vividly bring back the Belle Époque era. Krul finds his talent in seducing attractive hotel guests as an elevator boy and then a waiter at the Grand Hotel in Paris. Some viewers may have read Mann’s original short stories or novels about Kroll’s life, but this is not required. Like Ripley, Kroll’s story is one of womanizing, impersonation, class divisions, and moral gray areas. The Confessions of Felix Krull will be streamed on SBS On Demand from October 20th.
glengarry glen ross
Glengarry Glen Ross depicts characters who are not morally gray but firmly on the wrong side of justice. The most trusted professional base is often a real estate agent. In playwright David Mamet’s Oscar-nominated 1992 film, a greedy shark fighting for a monopoly on sales goes down in the most entertainingly gory way. Agents who cannot close deals are out of the game. And if there’s anyone who can make these morally corrupt men impossible to look away from, it’s the incredible cast. Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Bruce Altman, Kevin Spacey, and the incomparable Alan Arkin are at the pinnacle of acting, regardless of sales statistics. Mamet is capable of writing truly mean-spirited work that revels in the darkest elements of human nature. Think of a series like The Devils, starring Alessandro Borghi and Patrick Dempsey, as a natural iteration of Glengarry Glen Ross. There, reprehensible men create their own hell to fester, and while it may not come back anytime soon, viewers can live in anticipation of it coming.
Glengarry Glen Ross is currently streaming on SBS On Demand.
Both seasons of Devils are also available to stream on SBS On Demand.
millennium trilogy
One of the greatest reading experiences of the author’s life, the late Swedish author Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy has been made into multiple films in both Sweden and the United States. American director David Fincher’s version was flashy, with a pulsing industrial soundtrack from Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, but the 2009 Swedish version is better. The title of Larsson’s book means “a man who hates women” in Swedish, and that sentiment drives the story, explaining the desperation and desperation for pure survival of the main character, Lisbeth Salander. Each film, especially the first, centers on Lisbeth Salander’s relationship with journalist Mikael Blomkvist, and their quest to uncover serious corruption in a family of billionaires with ties to the Nazi Party. It is a battle. Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist were perfect, and it was no surprise that Rapace went on to star in a number of American films (Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, etc.). As an avid fan of Larson’s books, these adaptations sounded true to the spirit of the book series. This is a complex story, and while you can watch the series without reading the books, reading it first will definitely help you get the gist of what’s going on. All Millennium trilogies are streaming on SBS On Demand – find links to all three or jump straight to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
girl with dragon tattoo
2 states
If “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” damaged your belief in love, Chetan Bhagat’s 2009 novel “2 States” may reinvigorate your belief in romance. Bhagat’s novel was made into a big movie in 2014. Director Abhishek Varman enlisted Bhagat to co-write the screenplay for this Hindi romantic comedy, so the film adaptation remains faithful to the original. Alia Bhatt and Arjun Kapoor are the couple at the heart of the two states and will be joined by veteran stars Amrita Singh, Ronit Roy, Revati (aka Asha Kherunni) and Shiv Kumar Subramaniam. Kapoor deservedly received rave reviews for his portrayal of Krish Malhotra. Bhatt is also great as Ananya Swaminathan. Where to start with the story? There’s a lot going on in the two states, but ultimately it comes down to class, family expectations, illicit romance (the affair between Malhotra, a Punjabi, and Swaminathan, a Tamilian), and It’s a story that ignores social and cultural obstacles to staying together.
“2 States” is currently streaming on SBS On Demand.
Watch the full episode on SBS On Demand.
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