As a Michigander, I always like learning about my home state’s history. Ever since the 4th grade, I’ve researched various aspects about its past. Nonfiction books like Wild Women of Michigan helped as well as fiction ones like the subject of this review The Women of the Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell. That novel takes place during the Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914 – an event I barely knew anything about. Not only did it shine light on this mostly forgotten event, but it also created wonderfully effective stories about the people involved.
The Women of the Copper Country (yes, I forgot the second the in the brief review) is about Annie Clements – the American “Joan of Arc.” In 1913, having spent her entire life in the copper-mining town of Calumet, Michigan, she had seen enough of the world to know that it’s unfair. The men risk their lives while working underground each day and have barely enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. The women labor at their company houses and dread the news of their husbands and sons not coming home. Annie decides to stand up for herself and the town of Calumet, but many people believe she’s biting off more than she can chew. In her hands lie the miners’ fortunes and their health, her husband’s wrath over her growing independence, and her own reputation as she faces the threat of prison and discovers a forbidden love. As she goes on her journey for justice, Annie slowly discovers how much she’s willing to sacrifice for her own independence and the families of Calumet.
Until now, the only other place where I’ve heard of Annie Clements (or Anna Clemenc) was in the Wild Women of Michigan book. For those who don’t know, she was a labor activist and an active participant in the Copper Country Strike of 1913-1914. I’ve never really heard of this event, but I learned quite a lot. The strike itself lasted nine months, and it was over the safety of the workers, who were getting killed one by one in the mines. I certainly understood the frustrations of the wives. The tragedy near the end tugged me at my heartstrings and saddened me to learn that it truly happened.
For the story itself, it jumped into the walkout so quickly that it felt abrupt. However, once the strike occurred I was all ears. There were times that I wasn’t as emotionally invested because not much was happening, yet once something drastic occurred, my attention was back on.
Now, let’s talk about the main characters. I like Annie Clements. She’s strong, caring, and frustrated about the conditions that the men are in, including that of her abusive husband. She also goes through inner turmoil with how she will be remembered, her feelings for the photographer Mike Sweeney, and the notion of thinking about herself more. I really wanted her to succeed.
Then, there’s James MacNaughton – the general manager of the mining company in Calumet. He’s a man who believes that everyone has their place in society, as in the White Angle-Saxon Protestants in the higher-up positions and the everyone else, especially the non-WASP immigrants, in the lower-class jobs. He even refuses to compromise with the strike leaders. I didn’t care for MacNaughton, but then again, who truly gets invested in villains outside of those who love or love to hate them? Even then, he doesn’t have that vibe. Even the servants hate him.
I also liked the fiction characters like Ava – a Polish 14-year-old girl, who assists Annie with the strike. She falls in love with a boy whose father was killed in a mining accident that became one of the impetuses for the walkout. However, over time, she realizes that she has to figure out what she wants, and marriage may not seem all that attractive to her.
Russell does a great job introducing the main characters through their actions. For example, readers are introduced to Annie as she makes pastries for her boarders – three young Italian immigrants who work alongside her husband. It shows how much she cares about the wellbeing of others. In addition, the thoughts and beliefs of James MacNaughton are uncovered when he reads a newspaper in his mansion. Russell clearly sets up that he’s going to be our antagonist. It’s certainly a better way to establish this than yelling or having them beat the living crap out of other characters.
Another thing that Russell does a great job with is the research. Her author’s note explains what was really true about the 9-month walkout and what was fiction. I was shocked to find out what the former was. One can clearly tell that she put in a lot of effort in the research because it paints a harsh, bleak, but hopeful atmosphere during the strike that took place in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (UP). I even asked some of the book club ladies, who were from the UP, about how the book represents the area. They all said that that portrayal was accurate.
Cassandra Campbell is back as she narrates this book. Her vocal performance is good. She distinguishes characters of various ethnicities very well. However, she doesn’t differentiate characters of both genders. The male ones have a slightly lower voice, while the women tend to have her regular one even though Ava is voiced a little higher and more excited for a chunk of it. Out of the audiobooks that I’ve listened to that she has narrated, this is one of her weaker performances, but it was still entertaining.
To summarize, The Women of the Copper Country by Mary Doria Russell is a good fictional account of the Copper Strike of 1913-1914 in Calumet, Michigan. The characters are well defined, and I was invested in the story for the most part. Above all, it enabled me to research more about the strike. I would recommend it to those who love historical fiction, especially about strong female characters, labor disputes, and Michigan. As a Michigander, I’m glad that I picked up this book.
Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!
Welcome to Part 2 of looking at various adaptations of Goodbye Mr. Chips and seeing how they hold up to the so-called definitive 1939 version. Today, I’ll be analyzing the 1984 television miniseries made by the BBC starring Roy Marsden (best known for playing Adam Dalgliesh in the Anglia Television adaptations of the P.D. James’s detective novels) as the titular character.
The 1984 version has 6 episodes overall, and each of them run for 25-30 minutes. It’s clear that series director Gareth Davies wanted the adaptation to be more faithful than the 1939 one because it includes more scenes as presented from the novella, while adding some original scenes to enhance the story. One subplot that’s omitted from both the 1939 and 1969 adaptations is the one in which Catherine convinces Mr. Chips and the headmaster to invite boys from the slums to play a game of soccer (oh sorry, football) against the Brookfield students. I have a feeling that this was added to show the impact that Catherine had on the school. The other noted scene is how Chips meets his love for the first time. I talk about how this went down in my review of the black-and-white version, so long story short: Chips is walking in the mountains in England, and he sees a woman waving and shouting, so he climbs up, intending to rescue her and proceeds to sprain his ankle. This is presented as such in the 1984 version. It took three adaptations of the story to display that crucial moment in its original form.
As mentioned earlier, there are scenes not present in the book that are in the show. In the sixth and final episode, when the Great War is going on, a student reveals that he doesn’t want to fight even though he has already enlisted. He claims that seeing his father’s wounded body and talking to a battered soldier at the hospital convinced him that the war was not worth fighting for. Mr. Chips tries to persuade the boy that it’s his duty to fight. The student refuses, so he gets arrested for being a deserter. I wouldn’t be surprised that this scene was added since the show couldn’t do the bombing sequence from novella due to its low budget. This sequence brings an anti-war message to the story, but I’m not sure if it’s necessary. During the Great War section of the novella, Hilton makes it clear that it’s best to carry on regardless of the present situation. Instead of displaying that kind of duty, it shows that one is better off listening to Chips.
Another scene not in the book is in episode 3, where Catherine and Mrs. Wickett take care of an ill student. During a bit of the previous one, there was some tension between the women as they try to get used to the new arrangement after Chips marries Catherine. Catherine tries to make her mark with the house that she and Mr. Chips live in and to improve the boys’ welfare, but Mrs. Wickett has her own ways of doing things. Once they find out about a sick boy living in the dorm that Chips is the housemaster of, they band together to help him get well.
Having this scene in the series makes sense, for both Mrs. Wickett and Catherine are expanded from the book and previous movies. In the previous adaptations and the novella, all Mrs. Wickett does is serve Mr. Chips tea and remind him of what the doctor said. In the BBC television miniseries, she is the first person that Chips gives advice to after she – a maid at the time – tells him of her plans to run away. Because this happens on his humiliatingly first day of teaching, Chips and Mrs. Wickett form a bond that lasts until the former’s death. There are even times in which Ann Kristen – the actress playing Mrs. Wickett – gives off looks that signify that Wickett may have certain feelings for Chips, but there’s no real payoff to that. I’m not sure if it was all that crucial to enlarge her role, but it enforces her symbolism of the lasting impact Chips has on Brookfield.
With Catherine, her role is more active in this version. Jill Meager’s interpretation of the character is closer to her counterpart in the novella. Catherine is youthful and wants to make a difference at Brookfield. I wouldn’t be surprised if Meager went to the Charlton Heston School of Teeth Acting, for she shows off her teeth a lot. Regardless, that gesture simply adds more charm and spry to Catherine’s character. In addition, the miniseries plays more into Catherine’s beliefs. There are several scenes in episodes 2 and 3, in which she and Chips discuss world events and trends that showcase how different they think. Moreover, this version even addresses the question I often had with the novella and the 1939 and 1969 adaptations: what does Catherine see in Chips? In episode 2, her friend asks Catherine about this, and Catherine replies that he’s great to talk to and at listening even if he drives her mad with his old-fashioned ways.
Since we’re talking about performances now, I can’t avoid discussing Roy Marsden as the title character. His interpretation is more somber than the previous actors, but his Chips has the sternness of the Peter O’Toole one and some of the warmth of Robert Donat’s. In other words, Marsden’s portrayal is the closest to the one in the novella. Much like O’Toole, his emotional growth is more gradual. This makes sense as the miniseries gives Chips more time to reflect on the actions and relationships he made and they impacted him. Additionally, I have to mention the physical transformation. When Mr. Chips is younger, Marsden is seen with a brown mustache that’s similar to Donat’s in the black and white version but less ridiculous. He also looks like the Count of Monroth from Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge just with more forehead. Luckily, it wasn’t distracting because he appropriately resembled a 40-year-old English schoolmaster. I can’t say the exact same thing when Chips gets older. Although various camera angles hide the fact that Marsden is wearing a bald cap with pieces of hair on his sides well, there are times where viewers can spot the bald cap. Additionally, the makeup was caked onto him, especially around the eyes to make him look older. I haven’t seen that much makeup to transform an actor into an old person since Orson Welles in Citizen Kane.
Young-ish Mr. Chips with his giant forehead
Middle-age Mr. Chips with teethy Catherine
Older Mr. Chips with Max Staefel in the background
Oldest Mr. Chips with Mrs. Wickett
The makeup is part of the bigger problem with this version, which is the budget. Before I explain, I want to make one thing clear: a movie or a television series can have a low budget, but still be creative in telling the story. When watching this, it’s clear that they had to cut corners in translating it to the screen. This explains why miniseries couldn’t do the bombing scene in the novella and do the makeup effectively as mentioned earlier. Additionally, they couldn’t afford many child actors since only up to 30 appear in one scene at a time. Since the core relationship is between Mr. Chips and the students, scenes like the retirement speech are less impactful, for Chips is seen giving this to the teaching staff, not the boys. It’s most apparent when there were outdoor sequences when lots of students are present that I swear were taken from the 1969 version. The miniseries was a collaboration between the BBC and MGM, and that latter company produced both the 1939 and 1969 adaptations, so I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case.
If the budgeting is the weakest aspect of the BBC miniseries, then the framework of the show is the strongest. Each episode begins and ends (sans the last one) with an old Mr. Chips writing his book and looking back on his actions and relationships. This is a great idea because he had talked about doing this in the novella and the previous adaptations, yet he never did. This also successfully justifies why he’s in such a reflective mood and going through each part of his life in a linear form. As much as I really like the 1939 version, it explains why Chips recalls his early teaching days (due to the new teacher at Brookfield), but not the rest. The framework of Mr. Chips writing his memoir helps explain why he’s willing to analyze each episode of his life.
To summarize, the Goodbye Mr. Chips 1984 miniseries works in some ways, but not in others. The miniseries format allows it to be more faithful to the source material. Certain expansions aren’t always necessary, but they don’t hurt the story. Obviously, the people involved had to cut corners, and it shows because it makes specific elements less effective. Despite all this, the framework is the best part of the miniseries. Like with the 1969 adaptation, I can see why viewers might like it, especially with Roy Marsden’s performance and if this one is the first version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips they’ve ever seen. I would recommend it for those like Roys Marsden and want to see every version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips (like myself). If you would like to check it out yourself, click on this link.
Stay tuned next month for the final part when I review the 2002 television movie produced by Masterpiece Theatre!
Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!
Content warning: this review discusses sexual assault.
There are certain books that are designed to shock people. They stuff in many things that mainstream society deems as (mostly) taboo in order to get a reaction out of readers. Whether or not they achieve long-term success depends on the plot, characters, and the writing itself. Let’s take a look at the 1996 book Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald – a novel that I liked once I got past the disturbing elements.
Fall on Your Knees follows five generations of the Piper family of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia in the early twentieth century. They are steeped in lies and unspoken truths and are forever conscious of the tragic secret that could tear the family apart. It specifically follows the four sisters – Kathleen, Mercedes, Frances, and Lily whose lives are filled with ambition, inescapable family bonds, and forbidden love. Their journeys take them from their homeland to the freedom that lies in New York City.
I first read a plot description of this novel on my library’s catalog page. It was pretty explicit since it talked about incest in the very first sentence. I’m not going to lie. I thought I was going to have a reaction similar to the characters in South Park reading The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs. And then, I discovered that it was over 500 pages long. My next thought was “Oh no, is this going to be 500 pages of one disturbing thing after another?”
Luckily, it didn’t turn out to be that way for the most part. Yes, it has elements like the aforementioned incest, mental wellness, homosexuality, suicide, gender equality in relationships, sadistic vengeance, domestic abuse, and racial tension. At the same time, it’s the characters that drew me in. They all want a better life, but something gets in their way. For Kathleen, she wants to sing to thousands, but while receiving voice lessons in New York City, she falls in love with the piano accompanist, and things go awry (but not in the way you think). For Mercedes, she yearns to go to college and marry the boy she loves, yet taking care of her family was always going to be a top priority, and their reputation in the community was less than stellar. For Frances, she yearns for a life outside the box, even if that means becoming a prostitute and performing striptease at a speakeasy. She too is held back by providing for her dad and sisters through unconventional means. And for Lily, she has visions from God and wants to know the truth behind her birth. It doesn’t help that many of the Pipers either make up stories about the past or avoid entirely.
In addition, MacDonald makes it clear that many of the characters are flawed one way or another. James Piper – the patriarch – wants to take care of his children in the best way possible despite growing up in an abusive environment. However, he guilt trips and verbally berates his Lebanese wife Materia as well as rapes two of his daughters. In addition, there’s Mercedes, who is very pious and strives to take care and to stand by her family regardless of her feelings about them. When Frances gets pregnant after having sex with a black man, Mercedes sees an emotional transformation in her sister. She fears that she won’t be able to take care of her in the same way, so when the baby is born, Mercedes takes her nephew to an orphanage behind Frances’s back. Also, she expresses outrage when Lily tells her that she didn’t want to be cured of her polio.
Furthermore, the writing style is subtle, yet clear and detailed. MacDonald’s prose gets inside the characters’ minds easily and makes the readers understand why they do certain things even if it’s wrong on many levels. This is apparent when James takes Frances to the shed after she calls the deceased Kathleen a slut. MacDonald plays that scene out like a dance. It made me think twice about what was happening, for MacDonald doesn’t lean into the disturbing elements. She simply writes exactly what was happening and the feelings involved.
Speaking of the writing, when the stage version premiered last month in Canada, MacDonald revealed in various interviews that she had initially written Fall on Your Knees as a play because she’s a playwright. However, she felt so emotionally attached to the characters that she turned it into a novel. Honestly, I wouldn’t have expected that since there were more passages about various characters’ motivations than dialogue.
MacDonald also dives into the backstories and motivations of secondary characters like Leo Taylor – the black guy who drove Kathleen to school and later became Frances’s lover – and Teresa – Leo’s sister. Did we really need them? I don’t think so. But then again, I love A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and that can feel bloated at times with its devotion to minor characters as well. This doesn’t hurt Fall on Your Knees because it’s a family saga after all, and it’s good for the readers to know every player no matter how small their roles are.
The only thing that I would complain about is that it needed more humor. The book’s blurb mentions how it’s “hilariously funny.” I barely saw any of it outside of moments like James discovering that his hair had been braided and he starts laughing. It should’ve had more humor to balance out all of the melodrama. In fact, I have a similar issue with the 1942 movie Kings Row, which was also based on a book that deals with societal taboos (but with small town secrets as opposed to one family).
It’s more disappointing knowing that Ann-Marie MacDonald is capable of conveying humor in her work. She wrote the play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) before she penned Fall on Your Knees. It’s about an English professor who’s writing a thesis about how the Shakespeare tragedies would not be so tragic if they had a fool in it, and she gets transported into the worlds of Othello and Romeo and Juliet. When I was a freshman, my college put on Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), and it was really funny because of the script and the performers who were able to sell the material.
To summarize, Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald may have or may not have been designed to shock readers, but in the end, it allows them to get to know the flawed members of the Piper family on a deep level through many generations. MacDonald’s investment in the characters is genuine and felt on many layers, and her writing style surprisingly downplays the disturbing elements in a good way. Like the Pipers, the book is not perfect, yet it’s something I admired after thinking about it for a while. If I had to recommend this novel, I would only do so for readers who enjoy family sagas and novels that address societal taboos.
Before I go, I want to let you all know that my latest episode of the Adapt Me Podcast discusses how guest Zita Short and I would adapt it as a miniseries. Check it out here.
Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!
Full disclosure: I was given a free eARC copy of this book by Dutton Books and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
For many years, there have been plenty of retellings of famous stories, whether they are classic novels, fairy tales, myths, etc. The most well-known ones offer a new perspective and insight on the themes present in the original material. The most common of these is the feminist view because let’s face it, a lot of the tales that we know of were written by men and celebrate men (for the most part). Today’s book The Shadow of Perseus by Claire Heywood falls into this perspective as it displays the views of the women sidelined in the famous Greek myth. It’s not always effective, but it offers lots of insight on female agency as well as the power of stories and how people concoct theirs, even if they are false.
The Shadow of Perseus is about the three women in the story of Perseus. Danae is his mother who was cast out of her homeland thanks to a prophecy foretelling her unborn child was going to cause the death of her father, the king of Argos. Stranded in a remote fishing village, she strives to make a new life for herself and her son. Medusa is a member of the Gorgons – a reclusive band of women who live deep in the woods. She has cut off all contact from the outside world until she meets an injured stranger named Perseus in the forest. Andromeda is a member of a nomadic tribe. When her mother brags about Andromeda’s beauty, a harsh sandstorm threatens to destroy their way of life, so she volunteers herself as a sacrifice to appease the gods and end the storm. However, Perseus interferes and puts her on a new path. As Perseus becomes more obsessed with the fulfillment of his destiny, his heroic journey casts violence and destruction in the three women’s lives. They have to reclaim their voices for a better future even as Perseus tries to silence them.
Before reading this book, I knew little about the Perseus myth. The only real thing I was familiar with was that he was the one who decapitated Medusa, yet I only found that out when I was doing research. As a result, a lot of my perspective on the book stems from not knowing the story that well.
With that being said, I found that the most divisive aspect of this novel is the removal of the fantastical elements of the myth. In other words, there’s no winged sandals nor a reflective shield that would allow Perseus to see Medusa without turning him to stone. Also, Zeus is not Perseus’s father (that we know of). On one hand, I see why Heywood did this. In her “A Note on Setting” section, she wanted to make the story as historically accurate as possible. This is apparent in the locations used and the different languages that the characters speak in. Also, Andromeda is a dark-skinned woman, so thank you Claire Heywood for not whitewashing her! I see this as subverting some of the more well-known aspects of the myth as well. For example, I wasn’t expecting Medusa’s head full of snakes to actually be a gold crown containing those reptiles and representing her worth despite what had happened to her. In addition, stripping the supernatural elements further reveals the darker aspects of the story, mainly the anger that Perseus feels for being deprived of his needs and destiny even against the will of others. Heywood omits how Perseus used Medusa’s head to turn Atlas into stone after the latter refused the former hospitality. Come on! Atlas had a ton of weight on his shoulders. Can you really blame him for refusing Perseus?
On the other hand, myths, legends, and fairy tales always have fantasy elements. Many of the retellings like Darling Girl by Liz Michalski and The Match Girl by Rebecca F. Kennedy (the latter from the Once Upon a Winter anthology) retain those aspects because they are familiar with audiences who had grown up knowing the original tales. Removing those almost makes the earlier story unrecognizable. Can you have a Peter Pan retelling without at least mentioning flying or pixie dust? Likewise, I can see why people are irked by the removal of Perseus’s winged sandals, mirror-like shield, Medusa’s ability to turn men into stone if they see her face-to-face, and Zeus not being his father. Heywood could’ve kept the supernatural elements while still aiming for historical accuracy.
The way the plot articulates the feminist aspects have some reviewers divided as well. Some love how the book gives Danae, Medusa, and Andromeda agency in their stories, yet others still found them to be weak due to all the abuse Perseus inflicts on them. It doesn’t help that a grown-up Perseus has almost no redeeming qualities, so this makes the book a little harder to get through. Female strength and feminism in of itself look differently depending on who one asks. It could be female characters fighting others with swords, using wit to overcome the naysayers, reading, and/or being human. Nevertheless, all of them involve them taking charge of their destinies in some form.
In The Shadow of Perseus, the three main characters suffer and struggle, but because it’s their stories, readers get to see what they are thinking as they try to figure out what they are going to do. And sometimes, they make some really stupid decisions. For instance, Danae allows a peasant from a nearby village whom she has known for a short amount of time to come into her prison cell and make love to her after part of the roof falls down. He was her only source of company, and she enjoyed it. Secondly, Medusa permits Perseus to stay in her cave because she feels she could trust him despite the warnings that her Gorgon sisters give and being sexually abused in the past. She didn’t know what Perseus was going to react when she eventually told him to leave. Everybody makes dumb choices even if others completely understand where they are coming from. Other times, the female protagonists decide to do things that modern audiences might not gel with. While stuck in the ship as Perseus’s wife, Andromeda figures that if she can feed his ego, he won’t hurt her as much. This fawning is not exactly the most ideal way of handling an abusive relationship, but it is a survival tactic. Moreover, Danae and Andromeda bond over their pain and discover a way to get Perseus to listen to them, especially when they’re on their way back to Argos. Readers might enjoy it more if they have a broader view of what feminism is.
There are two main strengths that the novel has. It’s a quick read for the most part. It contains short chapters that readers can get through in a small amount of time. Most importantly, it offers some great insight into stories. Besides female agency, the other main theme is the power of stories, specifically how they make or break someone. When he turns 18, Perseus is sent to spend a year working on a ship. He’s not taken seriously at first, so he asserts that he can claim the snake-filled head of Medusa. Even though it’s not really that, Perseus still persuades and brags to others afterward that it was and shows it off to demonstrate his own manly power. In addition, he proclaims that he rescued Andromeda from the storm while she was chained up although he actually stole her while she was sacrificing herself to save her people. Nevertheless, he still tells other people that he freed her regardless. This and the musical Hamilton contain some of the most nuanced views on how stories are told.
Overall, The Shadow of Perseus by Claire Heywood may not be the most unique feminist retelling of a classic tale, but it provides some worthy insight on the power of stories. The removal of the supernatural elements has and will continue to divide readers, especially if they know the myth of Perseus by heart. At the same time, it shows how stories get made and who gets to tell them, no matter how distorted they can get. Although I wouldn’t recommend this for readers who love the Perseus myth and retellings of Greek mythology in general, I would suggest it for those who like feminist versions of famous tales, those who are getting into Greek mythology, and those who like insightful commentary on storytelling. The book is out tomorrow, February 21, so get it at your local library or bookstore!
Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!
Disclosure: I got a free eARC from the author in exchange for an honest review.
February 24 will mark one year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Because of that, war has been on my mind, specifically how it can affect soldiers’ families. I recently read the short story The War Legacy by Nandita Pant Joshi, which is part of the anthology Children of War: an anthology to support the children of Ukraine edited by Astrid V.J.. This tale effectively explores how war affects the widow of a soldier and her family and how she receives the strength to carry on.
Normally, I like to summarize the plot, but the author was kind enough to provide a blurb, so I’ll use that instead.
The only thing Sarah wants is to be free of her former husband’s war legacy. But will her painful past allow for a tranquil future? Partially set in the war-torn fictitious county of Minsrin, this story is for everyone left behind due to a war.
The story itself is very poignant. It deals with Sarah – a wife with a 7-year-old son – who finds out that her husband Shaun had been killed while fighting terrorists. She faints and later discovers that she’s pregnant with her second child. It’s deeply traumatic for her since she has to figure out if she wants to be a wife or a widow first. It also gives some inklings that her son Henry feels the pain, thus giving some commentary on generational trauma. Luckily, her friend from childhood Elliot is there to help her out with physical and emotional support as well as to remember the good times with Shaun. This proves that Shaun’s life wasn’t defined by war even if that was heavily involved. Elliot even offers to marry Sarah to further that support.
Sarah is conflicted, and the story is understanding about it. It doesn’t judge her for emotions nor for marrying Elliot two months after Shaun’s death. It sees that this is what Sarah had to do in order to move on with her life while maintaining Shaun’s legacy.
In addition, the tale dives into Shaun’s story as he told it to Sarah. He came from a war-torn country, and he recounted how his family was killed in various ways. I won’t describe how they died, but I will say that the author as well as the anthology have provided several trigger warnings. Shaun experiences survivor’s guilt in a very realistic way, especially when coming to terms of his sister’s and mother’s deaths. This is only a part of what Sarah carries with her.
If I had to nitpick, I thought Elliot was a little too pushy with Sarah to move on. At the same time, I understand his intentions. He didn’t want to see Sarah sink down into a deep hole after discovering that Shaun had died. Also, a support system sometimes needs to nudge a person in the right direction even if it feels wrong at the moment. Moreover, when they’re married, he’s respectful of her intimacy boundaries.
Furthermore, I thought it was intriguing detail with Elliot writing a book about Shaun and receiving an award for it years later. I would’ve liked Sarah to have penned it, but it shows that one doesn’t have to shoulder the burden of carrying another’s legacy. It’s a group effort.
To summarize, The War Legacy by Nandita Pant Joshi paints a realistic picture of how one soldier’s family deals with loss due to war. The feelings are complicated, and the story is emphatic to that. I would recommend it to readers who enjoy war stories about the fighters’ families. I’d also encourage them to read the anthology Children of War: an anthology to support the children of Ukraine edited by Astrid V.J. I’m going to read it myself in the future. All proceeds from the book will be donated in perpetuity to Voices of Children Foundation in Ukraine or another similar charity.
Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!
After watching the 1939 version of and reading Goodbye, Mr. Chips, I discovered that there were three other versions made of this story for the screen. These are the 1969 movie musical, the 1984 television mini-series, and the 2002 Masterpiece Theater television film (there’s also a 2021 filmed opera, but that’s not accessible at the moment). This piqued my curiosity of how each of these adaptations hold up to the black-and-white movie version. So starting today, I’ll begin my 4-part series of reviewing each of these subsequent interpretations and how they measure up to the definitive 1939 one.
Part 1 will focus on the 1969 movie musical starring Peter O’Toole as the title character and Petula Clark as Catherine.
When watching this version, one will notice three major changes to the story. The first is the timeline. In the novella and the 1939 film version, the story takes place between 1870 and 1933. In this adaptation, screenwriter Terence Rattigan shifts to between 1924 and the 1960s. I wouldn’t be shocked if this was made to update the story since it was released in 1969. In addition, the flick starts with Mr. Chips fully established at Brookfield as opposed to him starting out in the black-and-white version. I suppose this was done to get straight to the point that Mr. Chips is not well liked by his students. I’m not bothered by these alterations because they don’t fundamentally change the plot.
Now, there’s the other and more obvious alteration: it’s a musical. Many reviewers and I have been confused by this since the story doesn’t really lend itself well to being sung. The podcast Musicals With Cheese and the YouTube channel Musical Hell have gone into more detailed explanation of why certain tales work better as musicals, so I’ll make this brief. Musicals deal with big emotions, feelings so huge that characters have no choice but to sing and dance. For example, Les Miserables makes for a great musical because it deals with people in depressing situations and their desires to get out of them despite the odds. The protagonist Jean Valjean especially needs to sing because he wants to prove to others that he is a person despite serving 19 years in prison and being repeatedly stalked by an officer who yearns to put him in his societal place. With Goodbye Mr. Chips, there’s not a whole lot of big emotions. The students feel these, but with the titular character, all he does is be moody and reflective. That’s not much to build a successful musical. As a result, the overall movie feels misguided, yet it’s not bad.
This film was made during the time of the big movie musicals, where they were promoted heavily in roadshows and nominated for Oscars. Well-known flicks from this time period are Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. In other words, musicals were a huge deal back then. A lot of these movies from that time period tended to be long due to the songs as well as the overture, intermission, and entr’acte music. I can see why the decision to transform Goodbye Mr. Chips into a musical was made, but again, it doesn’t really work. For a simple story about an old former English schoolmaster looking back on his life, its run time is about two and a half hours. Talk about being bloated.
Along with the songs, it alters certain elements like the romance between Mr. Chips and Catherine. In the novella, the relationship between those characters is a quick one, but Chips remembers it fondly because of his great love and appreciation for his dead wife since she helped him turn his life around and be more open and wanting to get to know the boys at Brookfield. At first, I wasn’t crazy about this decision, because while the romance is certainly an important part of the story, it’s not the core of it. That is the relationship between Chips and the students. However, the more I thought about it and after discussing the 1939 adaptation with Zita Short, it made me realize that expanding the relationship between Mr. Chips and Catherine made the latter more important to the overall story. In the black-and-white version, when she dies, she is almost erased from the plot entirely. So, I appreciate this film’s attempt at making her more involved in the tale.
While the conflict between Chips and the boys is still essential, it certainly feels more contained than it does in the 1939 version. For instance, the scenes of the bombs going off while a lesson is going on and the April Fools’ Day prank the boys pull on Chips are combined into one. It felt like the movie spent so much time on the romance that the people involved were probably like, “Bloody hell! We have to include these scenes to ensure that it’s still Goodbye, Mr. Chips!”
In addition, since this is a musical, I have to talk about the music. The songs were written by Leslie Bricusse, and the score was composed by John Williams (yes, that one). Both were nominated for Best Score of a Musical Picture at the 1969 Academy Awards, yet I don’t think they deserve it. They’re mostly forgettable. The songs usually had dull melodies with lyrics that tell more than show. The telling part is a problem that I discovered while reading the novella, yet the tunes make that aspect worse. The lyrics are vague as a result. For example, take a look at the lyrics for “You and I,” and you’ll see what I mean.
With all of that being said, it’s not all bad. The best songs are “London is London” (Catherine’s song while she’s performing in a music hall revue [yes, Catherine being a music hall performer is another change that the movie makes to the source material]), “When I Am Older” (sung by the students as they go back to Brookfield), and “Schooldays” (the ditty that Catherine performs with some of the students at an assembly). All of them are fun and have a lot of visual elements going for them. The first tune is one the producers funded the most on as it has the most extras, costumes, and setpieces. The second one contains montages of the boys performing various activities while proclaiming what they’re going to do when they get older. “London is London” and “Schooldays” are the only two numbers, in which dancing is involved. This is strange given how first-time director Herbert Ross was a choreographer. Anywho, I especially like the latter song because it feels like the kind of ditty sung at an English school assembly, and having the one kid not know the dance completely is a nice touch. “What a Lot of Flowers” has plenty of pretty visuals, yet they tend to be so on the nose that even Tom Hopper would complain about how literal it is. “London is London” and “Schooldays” contain the most effective imagery in the movie and are the least involved with the plot, so who cares about the vague lyrics. “When I Am Older” has the most specific lyrics and are sung by characters that would definitely do so, especially since they are at an English boarding school.
As mentioned earlier, this was the directorial debut of Herbert Ross, and it shows. There’s plenty of wide shots of various locations like London, Brookfield, and Pompeii. The opening and closing shots of the boys getting checked in are effective. They look nice, but they feel mostly pointless. At one point while Chips and Catherine are in Pompeii, there are so many lens flares that I thought I could go blind. The editing is fine. It cuts like it’s supposed to. However, it sometimes goes into montages with pointless images. For example, during the “Where Did My Childhood Go?” number, the film cuts appropriately to the students celebrating the last day of school, yet soon after, it transitions to adults walking and boys singing in a choir for some reason. Later on in the flick, when Chips or Catherine remember their whirlwind of a romance, it shows their time in Pompeii. This makes sense, but the first time the movie does that, it happens 20 minutes after their initial courtship. The second time occurs is more appropriate as it’s shown during the second act. Moreover, when it came to filming the musical numbers that don’t involve dancing, Ross mostly has the actors silent while a soundtrack of the song plays. I get that this is supposed to display their inner monologues. It would’ve worked more if this only occurred maybe once or twice. Doing this multiple times feels like a cop out and that the movie is embarrassed to be a musical in the first place.
However, there are likable elements in the movie. First, there’s Petula Clark. She’s the same person who sang the famous 1965 hit “Downtown.” Clark has a lovely voice even if the songs she performs are weak and has a quirk presence in the flick. She is the best singer in the film. Second, there’s Siân Phillips. She is Ursula Mossbank, Catherine’s brassy and close theatre friend. Ursula is not in the book nor in the 1939 movie, yet she’s a delight whenever she comes on screen even if she barely does anything in it besides help thwart Lord Sutterwick’s plan to deprive the school of a generous endowment due to Catherine’s past (this is not in the book as well).
Finally, the strongest and weakest part of this flick is Peter O’Toole. He plays the titular character more stuffy and aloof than Donat did in the 1939 version. The film establishes this interpretation effectively by starting off with Mr. Chips checking the students in and then preventing them from attending a tennis match due to their low scores. This makes the emotional transformation more subtle. As for the physical appearance, O’Toole has a realistic middle-age-man-and-later-older-man look with his neat brown (later gray and white) hair and less ridiculous mustache. It suits his interpretation of the character well. The most efficient scene in the film is when Chips finds out that Katherine died when a bomb dropped on a RAF concert that she was performing in. O’Toole tries to control his emotions by slowly stacking the blank letters the students gave him as part of their April Fools’ Day prank, but he has a hard time containing it.
Young-ish Mr. Chips
Older Mr. Chips
Oldest Mr. Chips
I have two complaints about his performance. One involves his chemistry with Clark. In their early scenes together, O’Toole looks annoyed. I understand that maybe it’s part of the character as he plays Chips as more stern, but it doesn’t help that in the restaurant scene in Pompeii, Clark stares at her drink 4 separate times. I didn’t fully believe in their romance until Chips tells Catherine about his feelings standing up to Lord Sutterwick while in bed, and that was in the second act. In the book and the black-and-white version, their love is supposed to happen suddenly, so their delayed chemistry in this one is a major disappointment. The other caveat is O’Toole’s singing. His singing voice is weak and doesn’t contain much range. This was tolerable when he sang “Where Did My Childhood Go?” since it reflects his insecurities and need to open up more. However, when the song “What a Lot of Flowers” comes on, O’Toole still performs in his frail voice despite the tune needing more excitement and overall expression to sell it effectively. All in all, I can see why he was nominated for Best Actor for his performance at the 1969 Oscars even if it mainly feels like that was done because the last guy who played Mr. Chips won.
All in all, the 1969 movie musical version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips has good intentions and parts, yet it contains so many ideas to stand out from the 1939 version that it ultimately feels misguided. As a result, it falls short compared to its predecessor. Everyone involved, especially Ross, are certainly trying, yet it ends up being bloated and sort of dull. Above all, it doesn’t help that the source material doesn’t lend it well to being a musical. However, despite the flaws with O’Toole’s performance, he is the best thing about this flick. I can see why viewers might like it, especially this one is the first version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips they’ve ever seen. I would recommend it to those who are highly interested in seeing the big movie musicals of the 1960s, every Peter O’Toole and Petula Clark movie, and every version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips (like myself).
Stay tuned next month when I review the 1984 television mini-series!
Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!
Let’s talk about remakes. In this day in age in Hollywood, they are all the rage. They can fall into three categories: a passion project, a soulless cash grab, or a mix of the two in order to be as middle of the road as possible to reach a wider audience. They can also strive to enhance or add a dimension to the story that the original didn’t explore (or as much) before, or do exactly the same stuff as the original without trying to tell it in a different way. I have been thinking of this since I watched A Man Called Otto – the 2022 American remake of the Swedish adaptation ofA Man Called Ove. It was a flick that falls into the first and third camps and was better than I expected even though I still prefer the original.
Before we get started, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the title itself. When I found out that the title of the American adaptation was going to be called A Man Called Otto, I wondered why. And then, I realized that the change was made to reach a wider audience than the original did, especially if they didn’t like the presence of subtitles. As much as I, as well as other readers, would rather have the same title as the source material and the first film, let’s face it, you would be hard pressed to find non-Scandanavian people who could pronounce Ove correctly (again, it’s pronounced oo-veh). In fact, there’s a running gag through the film, in which Otto tells the people he meets his name, and they comment on how odd it is. It almost makes me wonder if they were going to have him called Ove in the earlier stages of development.
The whole reason I had been thinking about remakes is because a Letterboxd reviewer named tyler called this movie “the disneyfication of Gran Torino(2008)” The part that struck me was about the disneyfication part because the film itself reminds me of a Disney live action remake. Specifically, it reminds me of the 2017 version of Beauty and the Beast – a film that I mostly liked despite my disappointment that they didn’t use any of the songs from the Broadway show, but couldn’t compare to the original. Both remakes try to make changes that make the story more relevant to a modern audience with various levels of success. This results in more complexity than the original stories contained.
In addition, while the title signifies the same plot being told with similar beats as the Swedish adaptation, it also indicates some changes in order to Americanize the story of the same name by Fredrik Backman. Director Marc Forester and writer David Magee tone down some of the darker elements of the story. Luckily, this doesn’t involve the suicide attempts, as they are protrayed as melancholic and non-judgemental. Instead, the script eliminates some of the traumatic events that occurred in Otto’s (Ove’s) life like the way Ove’s dad passed away and his childhood home going up in flames due to the work of the bureaucrats. Both are present in the book as well as in the 2015 Swedish version. I bet they did this to focus more on how Sonya changed Otto’s life in the flashbacks. And while that’s fine, without the other events, there’s little explanation as to why Otto is the way that he is outside of a line that young Otto (played by Tom Hanks’s real life son Truman) says that his life was black and white before Sonya came in.
Additionally, Forester and Magee make the movie quirkier and more on the nose than the original. The eccentricity is evident in the choice of music whenever Otto inspects the neighborhood and helps his neighbors out. It’s roughly the same kind that’s used in a lot of family-friendly flicks to indicate some form of quirkiness with its Wii-inspired composition. While the remake does this fine, the staccato violins in the original stand out more and reflect Ove’s mindset more. The remake is even more blunt about certain things more so than the book or the Swedish movie. In the opening sequence, Otto goes shopping for some rope and acts rightfully annoyed about the customer service he receives. Later on, he turns off the gas and electricity in his home in order to take his own life. If that wasn’t enough, when he comes in for work, there’s a retirement party thrown for him, and someone decides to cut right where his face is on the cake. That made me laugh very hard because it was so blunt about its foreshadowing of Otto’s suicide attempts.
Moreover, there were some decisions to make it more relevant to a wider audience. One of these included diverse casting. While Otto remains a white man, his ex-friend Reuben (aka Rune from the book and 2015 version) and his wife Anita are black. This makes the subplot with the real estate agency Dye & Merika feel more racially motivated, especially since whenever the white agent shows up, he blasts out rap music from his car, even though their son was in cahoots with the company. There are many ways to read into that, like how this may be commentary on housing discrimination that black Americans have faced for decades, even centuries. However, I’m not sure if this was in the intention of the people involved. The new neighbors are Mexican/Mexican-American. The neighbors in the novel and the original are Swedish and Iranian. Malcolm – the person with the bike – is a transgender male who doesn’t like sports. He is a combination of two characters from the book – Adrian, the boy who wants a bike fixed, and Mirsad, whose dad kicks him out for being gay. Mack Bayda – the actor who plays Malcolm – is transgender in real life, so to incorporate that into the story was cool, especially with the amount of transphobia that has been present as of late. It also falls into the theme of acceptance that the book and the previous movie version espouse. Overall, I’m okay with these casting choices because they fit into the themes of the story, and the actors have solid performances.
Another decision that the film made to expand its relevance was containing social media commentary. During the scene, in which Otto tries to get himself run over by a train, an older man accidentally falls into the tracks. Like in the book and 2015 movie, Otto rescues him, while a bunch of onlookers film the incident on their phones. There are even closeups of the event from the smart phone’s perspective. Like Ove, Otto criticizes the crowd for not doing more. Also, Luna (Lena from the book and 2015 flick) is a social media journalist, which provokes some annoyance from Otto. Like her previous counterparts, she wants to hear more from Otto about how he rescued the older man and hails him as a hero. At first, he locks her up in his garage, but when he’s gathering people to help Anita to prevent the realtors from forcing Reuben into a retirement home, he contacts Luna to dig up how they’ve been retrieving their information illegally. I’m not entirely sure what the movie is saying about social media, yet I interpreted it as commenting on the negative and positive sides of intrusion. This theme is present throughout the film. Otto sees people who need his help as parasites that prevent from doing what he truly wants to do since he views them as incapable of completing certain tasks. This is like social media since people are so glued to their phones that it inhibits them from taking action. Overtime, his perceptions evolve after he gets to know them, and he utilizes their strengths. Social media also brings people together in the toughest of times and allows those to share their stories. Again, I’m not sure if this is what the movie is going for, but this is how I interpret it.
The performances are solid. The standouts are Mexican actress Mariana Treviño and Tom Hanks. Treviño plays Marisol – the Parvaneh equivalent from the book and 2015 film. Like the actress who played Parvaneh in the Swedish original, she portrays Marisol as pushy and determined, but caring. However, she comes off as a stereotypical Latina at times, especially when she gets loud and nervous and reverts to speaking Spanish. This might have to do with the script. Even it made me prefer Bahar Pars’s performance more, I still liked Treviño’s characterization.
And now, I have to admit that Tom Hanks was better than I expected him to be as Otto. Like many people, I had my doubts about him playing the titular character because he’s the most likable actor in all of Hollywood. How could he play a curmudgeon like Ove/Otto? Well, when I was watching it, I felt Hanks’s commitment to the character, and during the course of the flick, I forgot that he was playing Otto. Plus, his emotional transformation was a little more obvious than Rolf Lassgård’s, but it was still effective. However, at the end of the day, I still prefer Rolf Lassgård as Ove/Otto because even though I don’t know any work he has done besides A Man Called Otto, his characterization was more impactful than Hanks’s, especially the scowl he wears on his face through the majority of it.
Given what I’ve said, I’m not sure if I would feel the same way if I never saw the Swedish film adaptation. I’ve spoken with people who’ve seen the American remake, and they loved it. I can see why. It hits the same beats in the story in similar ways and retains the sentimentality of the novel. Plus, there’s no subtitles to worry about. I think I would’ve liked it more if I saw the American remake first.
Overall, A Man Called Otto is an okay remake that tries to update the original Swedish movie in ways that are commendable but with mixed results. The beauty of the novel by Fredrik Backman is its simplicity. The American remake tries to complicate stuff that didn’t always need to be. With that being said, I still liked it, and I can see why others love it. I would recommend to those who love Tom Hanks, want a feel good film that makes people cry every now and then, and have read the book. But at the end of the day, I would still want people to see the original movie A Man Called Ove more because while the remake certainly had passion behind it, it was still made to generate more money with a wider audience.
Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!
When accepting the Best Foreign-Language Film award for Parasite at the 2020 Golden Globes, Director Bong Joon-ho said, “Once you overcome the 1-inch-tall barrier of subtitles, you will be introduced to so many more amazing films.”
The reason why I bring up this quote is that there are many great films that just happen to be in a different language. This shouldn’t be a detriment to the viewers. After all, there’s a reason why we say we’re watching a movie, instead of listening to it or reading it. If one looks past the subtitles, they will be able to access more excellent flicks. A great example of this is the 2015 two-time Oscar nominated Swedish movie A Man Called Ove due to the simple and effective translation of the book of the same name by Fredrik Backman to the screen.
Since 2012, the book has achieved popularity and retained a cultural legacy in the world of literature due to the deep and simple depiction of a curmudgeon finding ways to heal with the unlikeliest people in the unlikeliest ways. Director and writer Hannes Holm understood this when adapting this through various aspects like cinematography, the transitions, and where to place the big emotional beats. The look of the flick involves drab and bright colors, but they are used as a reflection of Ove’s (pronounced oo-veh, [yes, I got that wrong when I wrote my book review]) state of mind. In the beginning of the movie when Ove (played by Rolf Lassgård) is inspecting the neighborhood and later whenever he feels depressed, there’s a blue tint that clouds the environment. Then, whenever he helps someone like the new neighbors, it brightens up. While this can come off as an obvious way to show how the main character is opening up and healing, it’s not blasted into the viewers’ faces because Holmes always ensures that the focus is on Ove and his thoughts.
Another element that works beautifully in the film is how it transitions into the flashbacks. Because the novel heavily relies on the stream-of-consciousness device, the movie utilizes this whenever Ove tries to take his own life. Specifically, it flashes back to various moments of Ove’s past that get triggered through a variety of things like a conversation with Parvaneh – the pregnant Iranian neighbor (played by Bahar Pars). Then, these thoughts get interrupted when someone needs assistance. Even though I don’t remember how the suicide attempts are depicted in the book, they are portrayed somberly in the movie, while the interruptions are more comical. Granted, these scenes can become predictable if the movie was in the wrong hands. Luckily, Holmes makes them into dreams that get disrupted whenever someone wants help. For example, when Ove attempts to take his own life the first time, Parvaneh calls on him to help direct her Swedish husband Patrick as he drives into the neighborhood. As a result, viewers know that someone is going to stand in the way of Ove and his suicide attempts, but the movie is so invested in the flashbacks that it comes as an rude awakening when someone needs Ove’s help. This is where the humor comes from.
While the film has its quirky scenes, it’s a tearjerker too, and it’s another element that it does well. A lot of the emotional scenes take place during the flashbacks. These include the fire at Ove’s childhood home and the bomb that goes off on the bus while Ove and his wife Sonja are on vacation. These are usually placed 20 minutes of each other, which allows viewers to think about what they saw and how it affects Ove in the present day while chuckling at various antics like him teaching Parvaneh how to drive. As much as I like the 1939 version of Goodbye, Mr. Chips, it tries to wring out tears from audiences every 5 minutes, which gets tiring after a while. Speaking of that film, Sonja is like Katherine since both become the person that the titular characters love the most and are able to turn the titular characters’ lives around. The main difference is that Sonja’s presence remains constant even when she is not on screen because of how Ove constantly thinks of her. This permits audiences to form an emotional attachment to the character and feel the impact of the stuff that occurs to the two characters. Katherine is only present for 20 minutes in Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and she is barely referred to after she dies despite Chips truly loving her. As a result, audiences don’t feel the impact of Katherine and her influence on Chips in the same way that they do for Sonja and her effect on Ove.
And now, I must talk about the strongest aspect of this movie adaptation: the performances. All of the actors do a good job of capturing the spirit of their characters, but of course, I have to single out a few of them. The first is Bahar Pars who plays Parvaneh. Pars played her character as pushy and determined but caring, especially when she wants specifically Ove to help her out. If in lesser hands, Parvaneh could become a nagger, which can become one note very easily. This doesn’t happen with Pars as she allows the character to display her caring side, especially when she gets to know Ove more. It also helps that Par and Lassgård have good chemistry with each other, which permits the characters’ relationship to evolve naturally.
Ida Engvoll plays Sonja – Ove’s wife. She mainly appears in the flashbacks with a younger Ove (played by Filip Berg). Engvoll portrays her as sophisticated, but with a sassy smile and a determination to help others as a teacher. There’s also a no-nonsense element to her performance, which makes Ove’s attraction to her all the more believable. This is especially true when Sonja out of the blue says that Ove will be a good father.
As mentioned earlier, Filip Berg plays the younger Ove in the flashbacks. Berg brings kindness and awkwardness to the character, showing how he was before all the tragedies occurred. At first, Anglo-American viewers might think that he might be either George or Fred Weasley from the Harry Potter movies, but his deep baritone voice dispels any notion and matches that of Lassgård’s. Both Berg and Engvoll have good chemistry, which make their characters’ love for each other more believable.
As much as everyone performs well in this movie, the strongest one undoubtedly belongs to Rolf Lassgård who plays the older titular character. The way he moves and speaks all embody a curmudgeon, but above all, he makes Ove more into a person that people can identify with than a caricature. Through his performance, Lassgård makes it clear that Ove fears being lonely and without purpose. Over the duration of the movie, Lassgård lightens up on Ove’s curmudgeon ways while not entirely discarding them as the character helps others and opens up about his life and Sonja. The best indication of this emotional transformation is Lassgård smiling in the later parts of the movie when he’s with Parvaneh or her daughters. Speaking of transformation, I have to talk about the makeup on Lassgård. Both him and Ove are 59 years old, but in the flick, Lassgård is made to look much older. This makes sense as the world has weighed Ove down so much that he has aged more. I didn’t even realize that he had makeup on until I looked at actual photos of Lassgård, who has a full head of hair, and Ove has his balding gray tresses. The way that Lassgård is made up looks very realistic, and I can now understand why Eva Von Bahr and Love Larson got the nomination for Best Makeup at the 2016 Oscars. They deserved it.
In summary, the film adaptation of A Man Called Ove proves that great movies can come from other languages because of its deep and simple nature. Holmes truly understood the spirit of the novel and conveyed that in a variety of ways, but the strongest element of the film are performances as it should be with a simple story like this. I can definitely see why the Academy decided to nominate it for Best Makeup and Best Foreign-Language Film at the 2016 Oscars. Like the novel, I recommend the flick to everybody as long as they don’t let the subtitles get in the way.
Before I go, I want to mention that I’m going to be reviewing its American remake A Man Called Otto next week, so stay tuned!
Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!
When I was a children’s librarian, I enjoyed reading juvenile books, especially for the Battle of the Books at my work. One of the titles that I read to prepare for that competition was A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd. Even though it can be predictable, it’s a good novel about finding the right words to say what one believes in.
A Snicker of Magic involves Felicity Pickle – a 12-year-old “word collector” – and a town that used to have magic. In the past, Midnight Gulch was a magical place, but a curse drove it away. When Felicity arrives in that town, she thinks her luck will change. As “a word collector,” Felicity sees words everywhere, yet Midnight Gulch is the first place that she’s ever seen the word “home” because her nomadic mom has a wandering heart. She also meets Jonah – a mysterious do-gooder who shimmers with words that she has never seen before, and he makes her heart beat a little faster. Felicity wants to stay in Midnight Gulch, yet she has to figure out a way to bring back the magic, so she can break the spell that’s been cast over the town and over her mom’s broken heart.
I can see why my library chose this title for Battle of the Books. When I read this book, all I could think of was how cinematic this can be. This was especially true with how the words appear everywhere that Felicity looks like in someone’s hair and in strings of her Uncle Boone’s banjo. I personally think it could work better in animation since that form doesn’t limit much to the imagination like live action can at times.
In addition, Felicity Pickle is a relatable character as all she wants is a place to stay and belong. I know a lot of kids, especially her age can identify with that. She has her quirks with the words and her insecurities. She’s great at collecting words, but verbalizing them is a challenge. All she needs is the right words, and spoilers, she does. I like her friend Jonah as well. He likes to do good things for people regardless of where they live in the world. He does this because it makes him feel good and as a way to distract him from thinking of his dad who’s been deployed. Jonah also is confined to a wheelchair for unknown reasons, but he and the book don’t let his disability define him. In other words, it’s there, and it’s a part of his story. The townspeople are accommodating to him, but all they think of him is a kid who lives with them.
My only complaint is that it can be predictable at times.
The characters have quirky names: check! The main character’s name is Felicity Juniper Pickle, and her teacher is Miss Divinity Lawson.
The town the Pickles move is unique, and all of the townspeople could have their own TV shows: check! Midnight Gulch is a place that used to have a lot of magic, and everybody in it has some kind of power.
People tell stories that happen to advance the plot: check! I understand that Felicity has a hard time finding and telling her story, but does everybody have to tell theirs? I don’t know if everyone has figured out each of their own, but there could’ve been other ways to move the plot forward.
And of course, I also have to address a peeve that a lot of readers have with the book: the amount of times the word “spindiddly” and the phrase “what the hayseed” are mention. I personally didn’t mind this because “spindiddly” is such a unique word that suits Felicity perfectly. People use certain words repeatedly to describe practically everything. For example, I like to say “absolutely,” “definitely,” and “indeed” plenty of times. I’ve annoyed others by repeating these words, but that’s my thing. As for “what the hayseed,” I find the phrase to suit the location very well. It takes place in a town in Tennessee, so it makes sense that people from that part of the United States might exclaim something like that. Also, I reviewed For Whom the Bell Tollslast year, and there’s one part of the book, in which the main character says muck to everybody he knows. Yes, muck. In addition, various people say, “What the obscenity” too! In other words, I’d rather hear “what the hayseed” than “what the obscenity.”
All in all, A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd is a good middle-reader novel that tackles the power of finding the right words to say what one really means. The protagonist is certainly relatable, and the descriptions for how the words form in everywhere that she sees make the book ripe for a film adaptation. Some readers might be annoyed with its troupes and frequent use of certain words and phrases. I’d recommend it for those who love reading about magical towns and characters who struggle to speak up. It got me a snicker of magic, and you can have it too.
Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!
Last year, I reviewed For Whom the Bell Tolls the movie – a film adaptation that was so faithful to the novel of the same name that it was dull and barely cinematic. It made me realize that there are ways to keep to the spirit of the book while adapting it to the big screen. A good example of this is the 1939 movie adaptation of Goodbye, Mr. Chips starring Robert Donat and Greer Garson. It captures the warm, somber, and sentimental spirit of the 1934 novella of the same name, while making the necessary changes to make it cinematic through the screenplay, the costumes, the music, and the performances.
The screenplay was written by R.C. Sherriff, Claudine West, and Eric Maschwitz. All of them are British. Since the book is quintessentially English, it makes sense to have British people adapt it due to their knowledge and experiences with schooling in England. This definitely comes through in the movie.
As for the screenplay itself, Sherriff, West, and Maschwitz expand and alter certain elements of the book for the movie. For starters, in the beginning of the novella, there are mentions of Mr. Chips disciplining his students at the beginning of his tenure at Brookfield to show them who’s boss, especially how the first boy he punished was one named Colley. These get turned into a couple of scenes in the film. Some of them involve Chips failing to keep the boys in line on his first day at the school due to their unruly and chaotic behavior and then later punishing them by keeping them in the classroom while a cricket game is going on. As for Colley, child actor Terence Kilburn plays every generation of said character who came and went to Brookfield to symbolize the families that Mr. Chips remembers and influences at the school. These expansions help to reinforce the evolution of the relationship between the title character and the students.
As for the alterations, the main ones come at the beginning and the pivotal scene where Chips meets Katherine. The book starts off with the retired teacher sitting by the fire at Mrs. Wickett’s place, reflecting on certain things, and then dozing off. It doesn’t really do much to establish his character. I sense that the writers felt the same thing because the flick begins with an assembly commemorating the new fall term at Brookfield and a new teacher getting a brief tour of the school. The headmaster mentions that Mr. Chips is ill, so he won’t be present. However, the film quickly cuts to the title character as he old-man sprints to the assembly, and he picks up a lost student along the way. Later on, he greets the returning and new students by remembering how their fathers and grandfathers were, and the latter warmly receiving him. My favorite part of that scene was how he points out that one student named Morgan was wearing trousers that are 3 inches too short just like his grandfather did. This is more effective in establishing who Chips is in a nutshell.
Additionally, the scene, in which Mr. Chips meets Katherine for the first time, plays out slightly differently in the movie. In the novella, he goes to the Lake District in England with a colleague named Rowden during the summer. While climbing a mountain, he encounters Katherine in a misunderstanding that she needed to be rescued, but he proceeds to injure his ankle while trying to get to her. After getting to know each other, Katherine and her friend help Chips get down the mountain.
In the film, a German teacher named Max Staefel (played by Paul Henreid of Casablanca and Now, Voyager fame) takes Chips on a trip to Austria during the winter break. Max is briefly mentioned in the book when it’s revealed that he was killed during the Great War while fighting for the Germans. His character is expanded in the flick as being a nice guy who wants to help Mr. Chips to get his mind off of not getting the housemaster position (side note: it’s interesting having a sympathetic German person in an Anglo-American film from 1939). Then, while Chips and Katherine get to know each other in the mountains, a search party is organized to find them. Both are eventually discovered. I bet these changes were done to consolidate certain characters and make it less on-the-nose on how Katherine’s entire purpose in both the movie and the book is to rescue Mr. Chips from his old ways.
If I had to nitpick on the screenplay, it would be that it could’ve ended several times throughout the movie. In one scene, Mr. Chips and Katherine have a dramatic parting at the train station that’s reminiscent in many romantic movies. As Katherine leaves, Chips looks despondent until Max shows and says that he and Flora (Katherine’s friend) have arranged a church for them to be married in when they get back to England. Talk about things getting resolved quickly!
Granted this may also have to do with the editing as well. Almost every scene ends with a blackout, which may confuse viewers into thinking that the movie is over. Other than that, the film is well paced.
Now, let’s move onto the costumes. Even though the clothes worn in the film are not as spectacular as other flicks released in 1939 (*cough Gone With the Wind), they are effectively used in the story. The outfits worn by Robert Donat as Mr. Chips subtly emphasize how eccentric the character is. When the flick introduces a younger version of Chips in 1870, he is dressed with a coat with the top two buttons buttoned and that barely fits. Since the movie establishes how odd the character is with his unkempt hair, Airedale-like mustache, and how unfiltered he could be, this is a simple way of showing how he was not like other teachers. At one point, Chips’s raggedy wardrobe gets pointed out when Headmaster Ralston confronts him about his old-fashioned habits. The way that Donat looks down at the worn robe makes it clear that the character didn’t notice the garb in that way until that moment.
The wardrobe in the movie also reflects Mr. Chips’s memory. During the time he spent with Katherine, people are seen wearing outfits common for the 1890s and 1900s even though it’s supposed to be around 1888 after Headmaster Wetherby dies. Normally, I’d be confused, but because Chips later admits that during his retirement speech before the war, he would only be able to remember the boys as they are now. And, since he’s recalling his life in the 1930s, he’s likely forgetting certain details like the clothes outside of the uniforms the students wear. All he can recollect is the emotions and how Katherine looked to him during his years with her.
Moreover, the music is really good in capturing the cozy and nostalgic vibe of the flick. The school song sounds like something that was probably written centuries ago because of how choral it is. The voices exude a warmth tone, which suits the film very well. The melody is just as good when the instrumental plays during the background in various scenes. Also, “The Blue Danube” is exquisitely utilized throughout the flick. It’s first used during a ball in Vienna, where Chips and Katherine waltz. Afterwards, whenever he recalls his time with his late wife, “The Blue Danube” plays. Not only does it symbolize the happiness he had with Katherine, but it also further emphasizes how he best remembers the feelings that he had whenever he looks back.
It’s the decisions with things like costumes and music that make director Sam Wood effective. He directed the film adaptation of For Whom the Bell Tolls but this one is much better for many reasons. Wood is faithful to the source material, but he’s able to make things cinematic more successfully like the first meeting between Mr. Chips and Katherine than the film I discussed prior. He also infuses plenty of humor that mainly come from how eccentric Mr. Chips is, but Donat plays it like he’s in on the joke. Furthermore, the scenes involving some form of chaos are well done. This includes Chips’s first day of teaching and how that goes awry very quickly. I especially love how there are closeups of the kids having a mischievous grin on their faces before messing with their schoolmaster.
If I had to complain about one thing about Wood’s direction in this flick, it’s how calculative it can be. It tugs at viewers’ emotions at many occasions, and a lot of those moments are well executed. However, there are times that it’s doing so just to get a reaction out of the audience. It’s most apparent when Katherine dies, and a maid who hasn’t appeared in the movie until then starts crying upon hearing the news. I know that there are people who have said that you’re heartless if you don’t feel something during that scene. It’s not that I didn’t since there were other scenes that tugged at my heartstrings. It’s that I knew what Wood was doing with having the maid as a surrogate for the audience at that time. If she was established as a character much earlier in the film, then that moment would’ve been more effective.
Finally, I have to talk about the performances. Let’s start off with Greer Garson. She plays Katherine in the movie. Even though the character is essentially an I’m-not-like-most-bicycle-riding-Suffragettes plot device that turns Mr. Chips’s life around (this part is more apparent when Chips and Max are looking for Katherine and Flora, and they encounter another set of female bicyclists), Garson embodies her cheekiness and motherly kindness. She also has good chemistry with Donat. It helps that she has a memorable entrance where she emerges from the mist when Katherine and Chips meet for the first time in the mountains. On top of that, it was Garson’s debut film. Although she’s clearly supporting, I can see why Garson got nominated for Best Actress at the 1939 Academy Awards.
Next, let’s talk about the kids. The boys as the students at the school act like any other kids who get amusement by messing with their teacher. And when they’re punished, they act like the world is ending even though it’s not. This is true when they have to stay in the classroom while a cricket game is going on. At the same time, they share a warm report with Chips, especially when he starts inviting them to tea on Sundays. They always seem to greet him warmly whenever they see him. I also have to give time to discuss how Terence Kilburn who plays every Colley Chips encounters at the school. Kilburn plays every generation with a different kind of personality. The first Colley starts off as mischievous, and they evolve until the last one Chips sees is timid.
Finally, I need to talk about Robert Donat and his performance as the titular character. On paper, Mr. Chips is eccentric, but unremarkable. Given the appearance mentioned earlier as well as the Latin-related puns, a lesser actor would’ve played him one note. Donat doesn’t fall into that trap. Instead, he grounds Mr. Chips with warmth and sincerity. The emotional transformation of his character is believable because Donat establishes very early on that he wants to make a difference in his student’s lives. A younger version of Chips attempts to console a young boy on the train to Brookfield with little success, but later on, that boy, now a man, thanks the more aloof and stoic teacher for helping him out. Of course, I have to comment on the makeup. It’s the only time a movie directed by Sam Wood contains legitimately good makeup. Although Donat’s comes off a little clown-like at the beginning, it becomes more fleshed out as the flick progresses. Overall, I can see how the physical and emotional evolution of the character landed Donat the Best Actor Oscar at the 1939 Academy Awards.
Twenty-something Mr. Chips with his coat
Forty-something Mr. Chips
Sixty-something Mark Twain (oops, Mr. Chips)
Eighty-something Mr. Chips
All in all, the 1939 film adaptation of Goodbye Mr. Chips captures the spirit of the novella of the same name while altering it for cinematic reasons. The decisions made for adapting the book are successful in maintaining the warm, somber, sweet (but not sappy), and humorous vibes. The biggest strength of the adaptation is the performances, especially Robert Donat’s. I would recommend it to those who love black-and-white movies and not just to those who are obsessed with the Oscars as well as to those who love films about teachers and how much they can make a difference in people’s lives. This flick proves that one can be faithful to the story while making the necessary adjustments for a different medium.
I made another appearance on The 300 Passions Podcast with Zita Short this week to discuss this film, the novella, and the other adaptations and why the movie failed to make AFI’s 100 Years…100 Passions List. Check it out here!
Subscribe below to get notified when I post new updates. Also feel free to email me here for any review suggestions, ideas, or new titles!
Book Reviews by a Chick Who Reads Everything 