Norwegian Wood film vs novel

I thought some parts of the movie were really well adapted but overall the film lacked some key elements that were present in the novel. Naoko's character felt very similar to me. In both the novel and film her closed off personality made sense. In the film, her moments of despair hit harder given more visuals and sound juxtaposition between her silence and screaming. Midori on the other hand was not well adapted in my opinion; she was a lot more subdued and mysterious in the film while in the novel she's more outgoing and blunt with Watanabe. Overall, I felt like the film toned down on the bizarre, funny or nasty moments of life to appeal to a wider commercial audience but without these aspects of realism the film doesn't have the same effect of the novel. Also I feel like the editing of the film was really abrupt and choppy which made some plot/character development even more confusing than it already was. And Reiko's character was so completely hollowed out the ending didn't make any sense either.

--Viv