There was very little humor even though the whole situation is fraught with potential hilarity. And somehow the characters end up being devoid of likeability, I wasn't moved at all by their situations. I found it to be too long and slightly depressing. The next day, I was at the bookstore and found the short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald of the same name and read it. It was completely different from the movie. A different time period, different location, without any of the main plot points, and, it was silly. It couldn't have provided any ideas for the film. Harrumph, I thought, I was so looking forward to the book!
Then a few days later, quite by accident, I picked up a book in the same bookstore called "The Confessions of Max Tivoli." It's a novel about a man who ages backwards, has an epic love story and takes place in turn-of the-century San Francisco. How wonderful, the story I was looking for and it takes place in my beloved San Francisco! I read it in a few days and loved it. It has much more similarity to the movie's story than the F. Scott Fitzgerald short. In fact, the author Andrew Sean Greer said that he didn't even know of the short when he wrote the book but was relieved to discover how different they were. He says on his website that the production company tried to buy rights to the book in 2004 but he didn't want it to be made into a film. It makes me wonder if the writer, then, modeled his script after the book but with just the number of changes required to avoid a lawsuit.
What really boggles me, though, is why Greer didn't sell the rights to the book? His name and the book have come up in hundreds of mentions of the film anyway, with many people saying the book is better – a common remark about books turned into movies. So why not take their money and let them give us a better movie? He could have insisted it have a different title and could even opt out of the credits but still pocket the cash. In any regard if you liked the movie but though it would be a better read, I recommend "The Confessions of Max Tivoli."
3 comments:
Nice tip, might have to add it to the pile. Certainly to the list =).
Great post. Just one comment. Greer said that they offered him money NOT to make his movie. He never said he didn't want a movie made. I think he turned it down so he could get the movie made by someone else. But they must have wanted to block it. He received no other offers for the rights. Makes you understand Hollywood's muscle.
The quote from Greer's site is, "In the spirit of full disclosure, the Button studio did indeed approach me with an offer for rights to my novel in May 2004. It was not an offer to make Max into a movie; they were already going to make Button, and other than that their motivations are hidden to me. I turned them down. No one has ever made me another offer."
Ohhhhhh, how insidious! I read the comment about liking Max as he is on the page and understood it to mean he didn't want to see it as a film. How odd. It would have been much better if it were based on his book. And yes, I know about Hollywood muscle.
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