Amethyst Grace

I seldom write my own reviews, and when I do I never compare movie adaptations to books unless absolutely necessary because I believe movie adaptations can be amazing without being precisely congruent to the book. This is not one of those times. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and thought the book was a work of art, especially being the only book Harper Lee ever wrote. However, this movie did the book ABSOLUTELY no justice. The movie and scenes are genuinely nonsensical and can not be put together in any kind of way that could explain the story if you had never read the book. On top of this, not only does the story make no sense but because of this, there is no character development or lessons learned, especially because viewers cannot even decipher what the scenes mean! For example, when Scout is speaking to Mr. Cunningham outside the jail with Atticus, it is hard to decipher the emotions between the characters at the time, due to a lack of dialogue and clarification, as well as generally no body language. Another issue is the fact that many of the major events in the book were haphazardly abridged/omitted, also causing a major lack of cohesiveness, organization, plot, and character development. For example, Ms. Dubose is almost entirely removed from the movie and therefore Jem does not face and then learn from the consequences of treating someone unfairly before knowing their story. A similar principle to this is also shown when Calpurnia escorts the kids to her black-only church (though this scene has much deeper meanings as well), but this scene was also entirely omitted from the book. As were the scenes where the kids (Dill, Jem, and Scout) act out what Arthur Radley's life must be like and Atticus reprimands them, where Arthur Radley gives the kids blankets after Ms. Maudie's house burned down, where Aunt Alex is with the society ladies and they make fun of Scout's clothing, when Jem and Scout recreate one of the neighbors as a snowman and then cheer Ms. Maudie up with the mispronunciation of "hermaphrodite," and when Mr. Gilmer reveals that he is in fact not drinking any kind of alcohol(it was actually Coca Cola), while talking to Dill about why he feels sick to his stomach from watching the trial. A more minor issue is that by the 1950s, over fifty percent of films were produced in color, while this film, produced in 1962, was still in black and white, taking something away from all of the scenes. In conclusion, the film really does not deserve the appreciation it gets, and it genuinely harms the book's image, in my opinion. Unless you're simply trying to check it off your list, I wouldn't watch the movie, but instead, pick up the book and start reading!