The Lucky One : Movie Review

It's officially official now - Movies based on Books are really BAD!

I just saw the movie adaptation of the book I mentioned - The Lucky One. I don’t know if I mentioned it or not, the book was good but it was definitely not to the mark with the other Nicholas Sparks books. Its not that I didn’t enjoy the book but I cant deny that it wasn’t a match to the rest of the Nicholas Sparks books…

And then when I started watching the movie, it wasn’t adhering to the book right from the first scene. As in the main crux of the movie is same as that of the book - Logan is traumatized after coming from Iraq. He has a photo of a girl that has kept him alive. He sets out to find the girl and thank her. He works in the Kennel, both of them fall in love with each other. Keith, Ben's father is a constant source of trouble… and then Ben falls into the creek and Keith dies while Logan survives.

But as in apart from these 5 lines, I doubt there is anything common in the two.

Right from the first scene of the movie, where Logan finds the photo NOT in a desert in Kuwait, but after his

troops has swapped a building. While Logan goes to pick up a shiny thing which as soon as he sees is the photograph, a bomb blows off right where he had been and all the people, but him, die.

The poor traumatized baby returns to his sister finding the war to have made him unfit to stay with people. He finally recalls Victor's words that he must go and thank the girl of the photograph. By the way, Victor is killed in a tank after having said these words by some sort of attack and not in a lake. Poor chap, didn’t even get to marry in the movie!

Well, Logan does that. He reaches Hampton without any encounter with Keith on the way. Logan enquires about Beth and is led to the kennel directly. He walks up and its Beth who assumes that he needs a job.

The worst part of the movie was - Beth. No offense, but the actress hasn’t done any justice to the role. Beth was a person who was made serious because of her mistakes and responsibilities, otherwise, eventhough she was a person of little words, but had a very open heart. She wanted to enjoy every bit of life.

However in the movie, Beth was this little miserable person who didn’t even let others speak. She was not at all in flow and made others loose their flow as well.

Zack didn’t do a very nice with Logan either. However he got better as the story progressed. Beth got worse.

Especially what was with the director? Beth going and confronting Keith… if Beth's character was so chivalric, why would Ben ever freak out in the climax? And Ben… I just cant say enough. Ben was supposed to be that silent kid who is burdened with the expectations of his father and tired of doing what others want him to do. Rather, the movie-Ben is very happy helping his dad and enjoys with Keith more than he enjoys with Logan. The worst of all - where Zeus? I mean yes there is a dog trailing Logan everywhere but apart from that, there is no more to Zeus. Whereas, in the book, you would just fall in love with Zeus!

Having written what all I disliked, there are two things that I really loved about the movie which were not there in the movie.

Firstly, I liked to see Judge Clayton. I mean in the book there was Judge Clayton, in bits; but he was such a part that was most liked to get edited while making the movie. Rather there was more Judge Clayton than in the book. Especially in the last scene, when Keith dies, I really was overwhelmed to see Judge Clayton there. It kind of added more roots to the movie.

The other thing that I totally loved was the boat. There wasn’t so much told about Beth's parents. As in again it was the kind of thing that would get edit. But showing the boat and how Logan worked the boat - it was all wonderful.

Back to the things I hated - the intense scenes between Logan and Beth - HELLO!! I appreciate how they didn’t show the two falling in love the very instance and how it made sense for Keith to intervene constantly than trying to scare the guy off but there was a very important thing that the two didn’t want to show Ben that they were dating and so making out broadly in the house was LAME!

Lastly, not the least, I imagined Nana to be somewhat as she was portrayed, just a little more healthy. Nana was exactly the Godmother to Beth and at the same time she was wise to judge about Logan and also childish enough. I simply loved Nana both in the book as well in the movie.

Reading the review, I find that I have just written everything in small points. I guess throughout the movie, I was just taking notes mentally as to what I felt or what each scene reflected to me. Maybe this happens when you see a movie after you have read the book it is based on.

However, I wont imagine how bad it would be to not read the book. I would have ended up hating the story if I just seen the movie. Books definitely provide the director within us to  let our imagination fly high and decide the small, finer details ourselves. Most of the times these details are already presented to us in the movie by the director and in accordance to the director's point of view. Thereby it is very much possible that if we don’t like the director's perspective, we are bound to not enjoy the movie.

A book, however, is different. Like a read recently, reading a book is like being in discussion with the author. You learn his/her perspective and there is a simple attempt to show the reader the author's world. But it is to the reader how exactly do we take it.

I guess, I am headed off onto a total different direction in the article now. So let me just conclude with - if you havent seen the movie, and havent read the novel (important prerequisite), do see it. Its not a classic Romeo-Juliet, but it is a nice and decent love story.