Of Mice and Men, Book vs. Movie

Within the last few days, we gazed upon a new movie, in marvel of its exciting comparison to the plot of the book, Of Mice and Men.  The movie, as well as the book, could be shown as a playwright, as the plot of the story can be pronounced in a series of ways, such as book, movie, and play. Nevertheless, it did not come to my surprise when some aspects of the movie had been altered and some scenes deleted. It would be wise for anyone who is aspiring to watch the movie, to read the book first, as the differences are quite noticeable.

Of Mice and Men, the movie, was very well directed and the setting of the movie was spectacular.  The film did not surprise me a lot, except the way that the characters were portrayed, as I would have expected Slim to be like the head and boss of the bunkhouse, but he was not shown like that. Also I was surprised that when Curley’s wife died, he did not cry or remorse petulantly, Curley just went for his gun and went after him. I would have expected that the movie would have paid some attention to death, as all the movies do, but unfortunately, it did not.

As the film had its accolades attributed by myself, I did also have a few negatives and confident needs for improvements in the film.  I was irritated with some aspects of the film, such as deletion of scenes, such as when Candy’s wife dawdles into Crook’s room and conjures a conversation and a threat to Crooks. Also, at the end of the book, Lennie has illusions about a giant rabbit and his aunt Clara, this scene was deleted and it could have provided us with vital information about how he thought about his actions and what he thought he could do to fix them.  This also may have attracted a larger scope of an audience; nevertheless, the scenes which were implemented in the story were very well projected.

The film did help me understand elements of the book more clearly, such as the bond between George and Lennie, the film portrayed true friendship and it made me realise that there is more to them, than meets the eye.  The film also helped me truly recognize the importance of friendship and what it means to be a friend.  The movie did to some extent help me comprehend the situation of symbolism in the book.

Of Mice and Men the film had a very interesting cast, some of the choices of actors made by the casting call I did not see eye to eye, but otherwise it was a fantastic film, complemented by an exceptional cast. In the book, we see that George Milton is portrayed as a small character, who acts as a father figure, and depends on Lennie frequently.  Although in the movie, George is similar to Lennie in the way that they are both nearly the same height and Lennie depends on George a lot.  Furthermore, I imagined Slim as a muscular, tall, broad shouldered, handy and clever man, whereas in the movie, we see Slim as a character much like George, medium height, somewhat build, not too handy but can get a job done and has a short temper. Except for these characters, nothing else came to surprise in the film about the casting.

The ending of Of Mice and Men, came as no surprise as we all knew that Lennie was going to die, as we had read the novella. The ending did make me understand more clearly that George killed Lennie, out of his love for him and also for Lennie’s benefit and possible his own. I would have sought for a longer ending, in which there would be an increasing build up to the climax in which Lennie would have died. In the book, we saw that George spoke to and comforted Lennie about the dream farm in which he took the surge of the breath of friendship and then shot him. Whereas, in the movie, we see that George begins to converse to Lennie about the farm and explains about its amenities, but then he hastily shoots him, this may have been because it was too difficult for George to bear any more time to wait. 

I believe that the movie and book are both great versions of the same spectacular story, but in my opinion, I preferred the book to the novel.  Nonetheless, the movie was brilliant, the cast were tremendous and I would love to watch it again and find more insights about the characters and their relationships to one another.