Not long after declaring my abstention from the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I received a phone call from an acquaintance wondering if I'd join his group planning to see the movie — whereupon my flimsy pulp-satire purism gave way to a not-unhealthy interest in walking the town on a Friday night. Tony and I shared a refreshing exchange on crossing mediums: no book can ever be carried verbatim to a screen, and even if it could, why would anyone want to try? Our strongest example of variations on a theme sprang from Charles Dickens. Tony's favorite moving picture of A Christmas Carol is Alastair Sims' 1951 production, while my family has faithfully sat down in front of George C. Scott's 1984 television special on many Christmas Eves. Neither screenplay is completely faithful to the book, Scott's in fact taking quite a few liberties — but one is dear to each of us, and coexists happily with the 1843 novella.
More aptly, Tony pointed out that between the BBC series and the radio drama, plot points and characters for Hitchhiker's have been shuffled around like so many musical chairs. It isn't virgin ground.
So I'll accompany a small outfit to a viewing tonight. What to expect? Planet Magrathea, you might recall, hated it — but in light of the phone conversation, I've made a stronger note of the author's self-described intimacy with everything Adams. In the mainstream press, opinions seem to be in two camps about three thousand miles apart — depending on which end of the Atlantic a journalist resides. Stateside, consensus holds that the movie is too little for fans, too much for neophyte walk-ins; reviewers differ on how deleterious the compromise is. The Toledo Blade concludes that nobody will be satisfied; the Virginian-Pilot goes one further and promises that everyone, including Adams' own biographer, has reason enough to fling their buttered popcorn and exit, stage insulted.
The Modesto Bee's reviewer seems to have considered what a culture with a stiff upper lip might make of the film, and posits Hitchhiker's as a gauge of one's taste for British humor. Sure enough, the UK Register thought it was worth an evening show; the Telegraph is showing unqualified love; and though the Guardian didn't take to it, the reviewer gives us more perspective than a combination of thumbs up or down.
Will I write a brief on it? Maybe. Sometimes I examine movies on the first watch; sometimes I sit back and enjoy them. Should I, I promise to keep my obligatory movie-themed cliché confined to the title.