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

Charles Bukowski is the poet laureate of sleazy, down-and-out, and drunk. As well as book after book of direct, hardboiled, cynically beautiful poetry, he wrote several semiautobiographical novels detailing the gritty life and many failures of his alter-ego Chinaski.

In Post Office, he wrote about the dark, absurd world of postal workers. In Women, he wrote about his - that is, Chinaski's - many sordid and unflattering love affairs. And in Factotum, he wrote about the life of a bored, charmless drifter moving indifferently from job to job, never giving a hoot about anything but the next pay cheque, the next drink, or the next horse race he could use as a way to gamble away the meagre money he worked for.

Bent Hamer's 2005 film adaptation of Factotum retains the basic themes of the novel – work, drinking, gambling, and sex – but it is more of a distillation of the spirit of Bukowski’s work than a faithful retelling of Factotum’s story. After all, if you were to tell the story of Factotum straight, it would just be bleak and repetitive. The movie, though, like Bukowski's writing, manages to be soulful, insightful, self-deprecating, and strangely life-affirming through the dirt.