The Seattle Mystery Bookshop and the Case of the Somewhat Disappointing Film Adaptation

We recklessly disregarded Seattlest Audrey's advice and saw Gone Baby Gone this weekend.

We found ourselves halfway between Audrey's "don't bother" and some other critics' "it's awesome."

Then we noticed J.B. Dickey wrote up his impressions on the Seattle Mystery Bookshop blog. And, well, what he said. Both the good:

In many ways, it is a very honest and true adaptation. It has all of the major plot points of the book, and nearly all of the major characters. The acting is superb Casey Affleck and Michelle Monaghan are very good as Patrick and Angie and the always stellar Ed Harris, John Ashton and Morgan Freeman are stellar as the cops in the case. None of the acting is half-way. The film is both beautiful and heartbreaking in it's images and the city, a major character, compliments the story and the acting.

And the flaws:

Michelle Monaghan's Angie is reduced to be little more than a girlfriend, instead of a partner and just as canny a PI as Patrick. Why? No reason other than to give more weight to Casey Affleck's screentime, I suppose. In the book, it is Angie who can't let go of the case; in the movie, it is hard to tell, but she is far less a co-actor in the plot than she is in the book. And Angie is a GREAT character! She's in people's faces as much as Patrick. Both of them are confident, professional PIs and neither is the shrinking violets portrayed in the movie. When either of them do take a stand in the film, it feels out of place, something forced onto the characters instead of their actual characteristics.

Dickey's approaching the film as a passionate fan of the book -- "some of the finest private eye fiction ever written," he says of the series -- and of course fans of books always find flaws with the movies that get based on them. "If you're a fan of the books, you'll like it," notes Dickey, and he's right.

We're fans of the book, too, and while we certainly give kudos to Affleck, there are too many things wrong with the film -- from a fan's perspective, and from a moviegoer's perspective -- for us to be more effusive than "pretty good."

That said, Ben's got a promising directorial career ahead of him, and Casey Affleck deserves an Oscar nod.

Side note: our screening at the Regal Cinemas Parkway Plaza 12 featured random steam-pipe noises and sound that alternated between richer and tinnier. Neither of these were so egregious that we got up and complained, but be forewarned that at least theater 12 has quality issues.