"Wonder" the movie vs. "Wonder" the book

I went to see the movie "Wonder" with my 9 year old son Jonah yesterday, which got me thinking about what makes a successful adaptation from a book to a movie.

I thought the movie was great, though not quite as a great as the book.  What made the viewing experience  different for me this time was that often when I see the movie version of a book I read, I read the book a year ago or more, sometimes quite a few years, so I might remember just the general gist of what the book is about.  And while I did read "Wonder" for the first time back in 2013, I JUST finished reading it with Jonah, who hadn't previously read it.  For the last month or two, we have read a few chapters of the book out loud before he goes to bed, and we literally finished reading it on Saturday night and then went and saw it in the movie theater on Sunday before it leaves theaters all together.  So, it was unusually fresh in my mind in terms of making direct comparisons between the book and the movie.



I understand of course that every adaptation is going to be a little different than the source material, and I overall thought this was a very successful adaptation which would please both those who have read the book and those who haven't.  The acting was all really terrific, and while I had wondered how the movie could capture the changes in perspective the way the book does, I thought the movie handled it really well.  I did think it was interesting though, that the character of Auggie, who is described in the book as having severe facial deformities, actually looked better in the movie than he did in my imagination.

There were a few changes though, with which I have a few quibbles (minor spoilers in the bullet points below):

• The movie really diminished the role of Summer.  In the book, Summer is the first kid who sits down in the cafeteria with Auggie, on just the second day of school, and it's a pretty big deal that she's the first kid who takes it upon herself to befriend him, though Auggie does then become friends with Jack as well.  In the movie, it's instead Jack who sits with Auggie, and Summer only comes to sit with Auggie a few months later after Auggie has a fight with Jack.  I know this is a somewhat minor plot point, and probably was done in the interest of simplification, but it bugged me, especially because Auggie's dialogue with Summer about whether the headmaster assigned her to come sit with him makes no sense if the conversation is happening several months into the school year.

• The movie changed the fight with the kids from another school at the nature preserve quite a bit.  I didn't care for the changes it all, both because it diminished what happened and because that very diminishing makes the fact that Amos, Miles, and Henry suddenly see themselves on Auggie's side less convincing.

• The book includes a scene with Julian and his parents which is NOT in "Wonder," though it is in the separate story about Julian in R.J. Palacio's follow up book, "Auggie & Me."  I can't decide how I feel about this.  I don't think it detracts from the book and obviously it is directly from RJ Palacio's writing, but one of the things that I think is both interesting and a great conversation piece about "Wonder" is that you don't really get anything that explains Julian's actions.

But all in all, I thought the movie did a great job.  I would still recommend reading the book first, because that's how I roll, but it is well worth seeing even if you haven't read the book.

I was going to also write something about other movie adaptations of varying degrees of success, but I think this post is long enough so I'll save that for another day!