and
Chapters/Indigo (https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/page-to-screen/coming-soon?s_campaign=Indigo:Social:Twitter:Books&s_campaign=Indigo:Social:Twitter:)
have compiled lists of recent/ soon-to-be-released films and tv movies based on books. Here’s my list of 15 interesting novels which
have been adapted into (recent or soon-to-be-released) films.
London Fields – Martin Amis (Film starring Billy Bob Thornton)
In this murder
mystery, the murderee is Nicola Six, a "black hole" of sex and self-loathing
intent on orchestrating her own extinction. The murderer may be Keith Talent, a violent
lowlife whose only passions are pornography and darts. Or is the killer the rich, honorable, and
dimly romantic Guy Clinch?
Room – Emma Donaghue (Film starring Brie Larson)
The
narrator is five-year-old Jack, a child born into a 12’ x 12’ room, the only
home he’s ever known.
His mother,
kidnapped seven years earlier at age 19, has created a world for her son that
is rich in play and learning, all the while anticipating the day they might
make their “great escape.”
The Danish Girl – David Ebershoff (Film starring Eddie Redmayne)
The Danish Girl portrays the unique intimacy that defines
every marriage and the remarkable story of Lili Elbe, a pioneer in transgender
history, and the woman torn between loyalty to her marriage and her own
ambitions and desires.
The Dressmaker – Roasalie Ham (Film starring Kate Winslet)
After
twenty years spent mastering the art of dressmaking at couture houses in Paris,
Tilly Dunnage returns to the small Australian town she was banished from as a
child. She plans only to check on her
ailing mother and leave. But Tilly
decides to stay, and though she is still an outcast, her lush, exquisite
dresses prove irresistible to the prim women of Dungatar. Through her fashion business, her friendship
with Sergeant Farrat, the town’s only policeman, and a budding romance with
Teddy, the local football star whose family is almost as reviled as hers, she
finds a measure of grudging acceptance. But as her dresses begin to arouse
competition and envy in town, causing old resentments to surface, it becomes
clear that Tilly’s mind is set on exacting revenge on those who wronged her.
Into the Forest – Jean Hegland (Film starring Ellen Page and Evan Rachel
Wood)
Set in the near-future,
Into the Forest focuses on the
relationship between two teenage sisters living alone in their Northern
California forest home. Over 30 miles
from the nearest town, and several miles away from their nearest neighbor, Nell
and Eva struggle to survive as society begins to decay and collapse around
them.
The Price of Salt – Patricia Highsmith (Film starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney
Mara)
Therese Belivet
is a stage designer trapped in a department-store day job. Her salvation arrives one day in the form of
Carol Aird, an alluring suburban housewife in the throes of a divorce. They
fall in love and set out across the United States, pursued by a private
investigator who eventually blackmails Carol into a choice between her daughter
and her lover.
Beasts of No Nation – Uzodinma Iweala (Film starring Abraham Attah)
Agu, a
young boy in an unnamed West African nation, is recruited into a unit of
guerrilla fighters as civil war engulfs his country. Haunted by his father's own death at the hands
of militants, Agu is vulnerable to the dangerous yet paternal nature of his new
commander. While the war rages on, Agu
becomes increasingly divorced from the life he had known before the conflict
started—a life of school friends, church services, and time with his family
still intact.
A Tale of Love and
Darkness – Amos
Oz (Film starring Natalie Portman)
A Tale of Love and Darkness is the story of a boy who grows up
in war-torn Jerusalem, in a small apartment crowded with books in twelve
languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. The story of an adolescent whose life has been
changed forever by his mother’s suicide. The story of a man who leaves the constraints
of his family and community to join a kibbutz, change his name, marry, have
children. The story of a writer who
becomes an active participant in the political life of his nation.
The Revenant: A Novel
of Revenge –
Michael Punke (Film starring Leonardo
DiCaprio)
Frontiersman
Hugh Glass enters the employ of Capt. Andrew Henry, trapping along tributaries
of the Missouri River. After surviving
months of hardship and Indian attack, he falls victim to a grizzly bear. Glass
appears to be mortally wounded. Initially, Captain Henry refuses to abandon
him and has him carried along the Grand River. Unfortunately, the terrain soon makes
transporting Glass impossible. Even
though his death seems certain, Henry details two men, a fugitive mercenary,
John Fitzgerald, and young Jim Bridger to stand watch and bury him. After several days, Fitzgerald sights hostile
Indians. Taking Glass's rifle and
tossing Bridger his knife, Fitzgerald flees with Bridger, leaving Glass. Enraged at being left alone and defenseless, Glass
survives and embarks on a 3,000-mile-long vengeful pursuit of his betrayers.
Miss Peregrine’s Home
for Peculiar Children – Ransom Riggs (Film starring Asa
Butterfield)
A horrific
family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off
the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s
Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob
explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children
were more than just peculiar. They may
have been dangerous. They may have been
quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they
may still be alive.
The Septembers of
Shiraz – Dalia Sofer (Film starring Adrien Brody and Salma Hayek)
On a
September day in 1981, gem trader Isaac Amin is accosted by Revolutionary
Guards at his Tehran office and imprisoned for no other crime than being Jewish
in a country where Muslim fanaticism is growing daily. Being rich and having had slender ties to the
Shah's regime magnify his peril. In
anguish over what might be happening to his family, Isaac watches the brutal
mutilation and executions of prisoners around him. His wife, Farnaz, struggles to keep from
slipping into despair, while his young daughter, Shirin, steals files from the
home of a playmate whose father is in charge of the prison that holds her
father. Far away in Brooklyn, Isaac's
nonreligious son, Parviz, struggles without his family's money and falls for
the pious daughter of his Hasidic landlord.
The Light Between
Oceans – M. L.
Stedman (Film starring Michael
Fassbender and Alicia Vikander)
After four
harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and
takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey
from the coast. To this isolated island,
where the supply boat comes once a season, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving
wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the
grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore
carrying a dead man and a living baby. Tom,
who keeps meticulous records and whose moral principles have withstood a
horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately, but Isabel
insists the baby is a “gift from God,” and against Tom’s judgment, they claim
her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to
the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world.
Brooklyn – Colm Tóibín (Film starring Saoirse Ronan)
In Ireland
in the early 1950s, Eilis Lacey cannot find work. Thus when a job is offered in
America, it is clear to everyone that she must go. Leaving her family and country, Eilis heads
for unfamiliar Brooklyn, and to a crowded boarding house where the landlady’s
intense scrutiny and the small jealousies of her fellow residents only deepen
her isolation. Slowly, however, the pain
of parting is buried beneath the rhythms of her new life.
The Martian – Andy Weir (Film starring Matt Damon)
Six days
ago, astronaut Mark Watney became one of the first people to walk on Mars. After a dust storm nearly kills him and
forces his crew to evacuate while thinking him dead, Mark finds himself
stranded and completely alone with no way to even signal Earth that he’s
alive—and even if he could get word out, his supplies would be gone long before
a rescue could arrive. But Mark isn't
ready to give up. Drawing on his
ingenuity, his engineering skills—and a relentless, dogged refusal to quit—he
steadfastly confronts one seemingly insurmountable obstacle after the next. Will his resourcefulness be enough to overcome
the impossible odds against him?
The Family Fang – Kevin Wilson (Film starring Nicole Kidman and Jason
Bateman)
Annie and
Buster Fang have spent most of their adult lives trying to distance themselves
from their famous artist parents, Caleb and Camille. But when a bad economy and a few bad personal
decisions converge, the two siblings have nowhere to turn but their family
home. Reunited under one roof for the
first time in more than a decade and surrounded by the souvenirs of their
unusual upbringing, Buster and Annie are forced to confront not only their
creatively ambitious parents, but the chaos and confusion of their childhood.
(All book
descriptions are from www.amazon.ca.)
No comments:
Post a Comment