While I did enjoy seeing the book in a visual sense and watching the characters interact, everything playing out more or less the same, it still felt like an empty shell of the original story, more like I was seeing scenes recreated rather than a plot unfolding. I think this partially has to do with having the movie be in the third person perspective. From reading the novel, we all know that Watanabe is not a very interesting person. He says it himself, he is completely ordinary. However, what is very enjoyable is how he sees the world and situations going on around him, explaining it to the readers. At least, that's what I grew to like about him and as an extension, Murakami's writing revolving around an awkward but attentive male protagonist. However, with a movie adaptation, we do not see into his mind or thoughts. We only see what he reveals to others through dialogue (which we know tends to be limited compared to his thoughts) and actions (which again he just allows fate to run her course in most cases). To me, this makes Watanabe seem dismissive and uncaring through the whole movie besides the yelling/crying scene and his occasional smiles towards Naoko.
Another reason I think the story does not feel whole in the movie is because of some of the details they leave out. Of course in a movie you have to remove some of the details to allow for a movie that's under two to three hours however in a Murakami novel that uses such simple language, the slight details to a person's character is essential. For example, Midori did not read as the strong curious individual she is to me because we do not see her hard work towards the bookstore and taking care of her father. We also see her talking about masturbation once but the topic of sex or male genitalia never comes up again which I feel is essential to her character. To me she represents more than just self confidence. She represents how adulthood (caring for her father, running a store, cooking meals) and childhood (curiosity, self esteem, her temper-tantrums towards Watanabe) can mix together to create one wonderful person regardless of adversity. With Naoko, the movie did a slightly better job, however added things in that I did not enjoy like her small fight where she is hitting Watanabe and her rudeness/aloofness towards him at times once she is admitted to the sanatorium. They made Naoko seem more mentally ill when the deal with Naoko is not her illness, but in my opinion, is that she has lost her childhood by losing Kizuki who was there for every part of it and is slowly dying hence from losing her inner child.
To end I at least want to say some nice things about the movie like how I enjoyed them adding a bit more emotion to Watanabe to show his suffering in the second half of the story. The yelling scene was hard to watch (which is a good thing because that's what they were going for I think) and the pulling out the stitches scene moved me a lot. I thought it was very symbolic of all the pain he was going through but never actively said anything. It worked extremely well for Watanabe and his character.
-Anna
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