10 Movies That Completely Reinvent The Books They’re Based On

The ‘reinvention’ approach doesn’t always work. Milan Kundera’s philosophical novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a sophisticated exploration of love, revolution, art, and responsibility. The movie retains the basic story of the book, whilst simultaneously managing to miss the point of it so widely that Kundera swore never again to write a book that it was possible for anyone to adapt into a film.

Kundera's book is unfilmable for very different reasons to novels like Naked Lunch. Though there's lots of sex in the book, it's not the steamy content that makes it untranslatable to the screen. It is a complicated, high-brow piece of work, and most of what makes it interesting is not really anything to do with mundane matters like plot. Kundera peppers the story with thoughtful reflections, philosophical asides, and political commentary, and these sections are what made the book so successful. Of course, this stuff doesn't make it to the screen.

Without these elements, the film is just a sentimental love story with a pretentious title. Worse, the book's protagonist, Tomasz, who is complex and charming on the page, just comes across as a leering, unsympathetic sleazebag on the screen. Sometimes not even an incredible cast, including Daniel Day Lewis and Juliette Binoche, can save a doomed project.