I guess if you’re going to adapt Vonnegut, you’re gonna have to make some changes and sacrifices here and there. The book is written as a “memoir” from the main character and while the film adaptation has voiceover to match that, there aren’t nearly as many funny asides and musings. The absence of these smaller moments turn this story into a more dramatic affair with sprinkles of humor, which probably works better on screen but I did miss the black comedy of the book. It’s a pretty straightforward page to screen adaptation other than that. My biggest problem with this, however, is the fact that it’s missing what I believe to be two hugely important sections of the book that are set up but not payed off, which was very strange.  

Everyone does a great job, particularly Nolte and Lee and Goodman. Nolte particularly does an exceptional job as a man who has no direction and is so guilt ridden that he is really just waiting for death to roll around, while also maybe being extremely evil or maybe not. He’s not really sure. I was surprised to see such a stacked cast for a movie I had no idea existed until I read the book. You could absolutely watch this without having read the book, but obviously read the book! It’s only 190 pages and it’s really good!

I guess if you’re going to adapt Vonnegut, you’re gonna have to make some changes and sacrifices here and there. The book is written as a “memoir” from the main character and while the film adaptation has voiceover to match that, there aren’t nearly as many funny asides and musings. The absence of these smaller moments turn this story into a more dramatic affair with sprinkles of humor, which probably works better on screen but I did miss the black comedy of the book. It’s a pretty straightforward page to screen adaptation other than that. My biggest problem with this, however, is the fact that it’s missing what I believe to be two hugely important sections of the book that are set up but not payed off, which was very strange.  

Everyone does a great job, particularly Nolte and Lee and Goodman. Nolte particularly does an exceptional job as a man who has no direction and is so guilt ridden that he is really just waiting for death to roll around, while also maybe being extremely evil or maybe not. He’s not really sure. I was surprised to see such a stacked cast for a movie I had no idea existed until I read the book. You could absolutely watch this without having read the book, but obviously read the book! It’s only 190 pages and it’s really good!