Book to Movie: The River King

At the beginning of the year I read The River King and throughly enjoyed it, My Review, so when I saw that our local ABC station was playing the movie on Sunday night I decided to DVR it. My friend had told me it was ok but wasn't great but I thought why not I can watch it and blog about it.

Well it wasn't a total waste of time because Ed Burns plays the main lead character, Abel, but I hate it when they completely change the story. They left out a few good secondary characters and messed up the ending IMHO. The girl who played Carlin wasn't nearly as luminecent as I thought she should be and Harry McKenna definitely could have been better looking. Jennifer Ehle played Betsy and did a decent job but they cut her part in the story down considerably. They did a lot of the story in flashback which I understand for time constraints but it didn't help the story.

I also think they lost the magical part of the book by turning it into a movie. The magic and mystical part of the book is what I found so enchanting and what is essential to an Alice Hoffman book.

Final Take Book to Movie: 2/5