Seldom are there ever two things that we love just the same. I have always loved both movies and books—but books just a little bit more. Movies are what I see when I look out a great window but books are where I am when I walk out the door—the difference between seeing and believing. So I will admit to some satisfaction each time these two loves cast their spells upon the same material only to hear, “the book” as they usually say “was better”. Sometimes they might be close enough to hash out a competitive balance but rare is the case where the movie blows the book out of the water.* This was certainly the case with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE—virtually everything that bothered me about the book was either eliminated, changed or improved by the movie. Were these words not the expression of my own reaching fingertips, I would consider them sacrilege. I would never sit still for someone else mentioning the movie version of a book while reviewing that book but I feel compelled as if breaking up a fight between siblings. For everyone’s sake, the sibling in the wrong needs to bow before the sibling who got it right.

The main theme of both versions is reinvention: can someone with A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE reinvent and insert themselves into a peaceful life. In this great pulp conceit, the main character ultimately cannot escape being drawn back toward the shadowy landscape of his past. This idea was appealing enough to draw me to the graphic novel in the first place. A perusal of the art work, black and white line drawings that are ungraceful in the right spots and downright brutal where it counts, also raised expectations. However the actual story lets the idea and the artwork down. Some initial intrigue occurs when the people from the main character’s past first show up on the scene but this gradually dissipates as the bad guys are defined only by their brutality and the good guys by their shallowness. Almost like watching an angry drunk get into a fight with a cardboard cutout. Many things bothered me about the story but the three biggest were (1) main character’s wife is only passably upset that her husband has been lying to her for nearly 20 years (2) the main character’s violent acts were done for the benefit of a beloved relative—whom he immediately abandons and ignores for 20 years and (3) the appearance of someone from the main character’s past at the end of the story is so absolutely ludicrous in this context that it almost swerves everything into Batman & Joker territory. Most disappointed I’ve been in a book in a while. So as much as it pains me to write this, the movie was better. Much better. Much, much better.
*Some other movies that were much better than their books:
BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY
SOMEWHERE IN TIME
AMERICAN PSYCHO