10 Books That Should Never Have Been Turned Into Films

4. Life Of Pi

PiThe Book: The award winning 2001 novel was the typical unfilmable story. Dealing heavily in spirituality, it€™s the story of Pi Patel, who loses his family in a shipwreck and must survive for 227 days on a lifeboat with a Bengal Tiger. Yann Martel€™s fourth (and most well known) novel sold incredibly well and appetite for a film was high, but as you can guess from the synopsis it wasn't going to be an easy job. Why It Shouldn't Have Been Adapted: Ang Lee certainly gave a good attempt at it in last years hit, but if I'm being honest, it was rather dull. If you ignore knowing how it is done in the novel, there€™s not all that much to praise. We essentially get some setup typical of a film with a pretentious message, followed by too long in a lifeboat, finally giving us a twist whose delivery M. Night Shyamalan would be ashamed of (and was already done better in Atonement years before). Like Avatar previously, people seemed to forget that pretty pictures mean nothing if there€™s no real substance behind it. What we have he is very much the same problem as with The Road; we've had an adaptation that tried hard, but they can€™t get round the problem of the novel€™s brilliance being in the text.
Contributor
Contributor

Film Editor (2014-2016). Loves The Usual Suspects. Hates Transformers 2. Everything else lies somewhere in the middle. Once met the Chuckle Brothers.