Norwegian Wood Film Rant

    Norwegian Wood is another addition to a long list of books that are better than their film adaptations. While the movie was undoubtedly crafted with care and an artistic attention to detail, it would have been painful to watch without having already read and understood the book. I say painful because the plot moved incredibly fast with little development but the shots and character interactions were excruciatingly slow, making the movie a bit over two hours long. I wish the director had forgone some artisticness in favor of more character development, because most character relationships felt forced, unsubstantial, and useless.

    The first missing piece I noticed was with Storm Trooper, who makes a few appearances that do not matter. In the book, Storm Trooper actually serves a role by being someone Watanabe cares about and talks to and he even indirectly causes Naoko some joy through Watanabe’s stories. The movie just paints Storm Trooper as annoying and disposable, likely to show some of Watanabe’s dorm life, which we already see enough of. Removing Storm Trooper would have been better than making his character meaningless. 

    Anyways, Naoko, Midori, and Reiko are the three most important characters after Watanabe. However, only Naoko receives real development, leaving Midori and especially Reiko on the sidelines. Midori is supposed to be the other lover but her plot line was significantly shrunk. We see her introduce herself to Watanabe, their talk at her house, them swimming, a shortened hospital scene – which was meaningful to Watanabe’s character in the book but not in the movie, – a short phone call, her storm out at the bar, and then suddenly after not talking for a while she speaks with Watanabe and wants to wait for him. There really wasn’t enough time given to Midori, the audience missed out on the porno film and their drunk antics. Disbelief must be greatly suspended to believe that they had fallen for each other to such an extent that Midori would leave her boyfriend for Watanabe. However, Midori and Watanabe’s watered-down relationship is nowhere near as tragic as the complete dissipation of Reiko’s role. We get a slight look into Reiko’s close friendship with Naoko and she writes to Watanabe in Naoko’s stead, but she doesn’t form the same bond with Watanabe found in the book, mostly because they barely interact and we don’t learn her backstory. Additionally, her visit to Watanabe’s house, which follows a similar structure as the book, is butchered! I’m bothered by this buffoonery because even though I don’t like the movie’s structural changes, it could have still gotten this scene right. The express literary purpose of Reiko visiting Watanabe is to explore Watanabe’s grief and healing as well as further characterize Naoko. First off, the movie doesn’t make it clear that Watanabe and Reiko are trying to properly mourn Naoko, diluting the whole reason for Reiko’s visit. Secondly, Reiko doesn’t wear Naoko’s clothes or mention that Naoko left her her clothes, thus, removing Naoko’s last chance for development. In fact, now it's just super weird that Reiko and Watanabe sleep together, since in the book they were real friends and him sleeping with her after she wears Naoko’s clothes could be seen as closure. 

After writing all of this I think most of my personal grievances could have been solved with a little more dialogue rather than a complete stylistic change. - Connor Friedman