The difference between books and movies is still not small.
Personally, I really like the director Ron Howard. There are many good plots in the movie. But overall, movies are much thinner than books.
Books are actually quite life-like, and they will definitely be scolded when they are placed in the country. Some social observations and political comments were mixed in the text. In my opinion, this is not an autobiographical novel, more like a reportage about the beautiful landscape of the United States.
From the perspective of characters, the "I" in the movie lacks a lot of plot. It repeatedly jumps between the characters of a good boy and a bad boy, and the narrative is difficult to fit the characters. In the movie, the turning point of "I" became better was placed under the custody of grandma, and the author in the book seemed to think so too.
But I don't think it is like that.
Although my grandmother’s financial support has changed "I" a bit, it was actually that period of military career that really changed the author.
His military story is different from that of most people. In addition to the experiences of other big-head soldiers, he has also done a lot of work as a press officer. The days of the big head soldier allowed him to regularize his life, and the press officer allowed him to raise his horizons.
If there is only the experience of a big head soldier, I think JD will enjoy the PTSD luxury package like many retired American soldiers, and the life will not be much better than his mother. The main reason why the movie ignores this passage is that the movie must be narrative in that way, but after changing it, it always feels that the characters have changed a bit.
Another big problem with the movie is that, apart from comparing the lives of upper-class whites and country folks at Yale, he didn't fully show a red-necked world.
We can only see a broken and abandoned society, but we can't see the simple emotions that still exist in this society.
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