To Read, Perchance to Stream
Three page-to-screen adaptations that tell-a-vision
Television viewers today live in an era of Too Much Content created by an ever-expanding universe of cable channels and standalone streaming platforms. This glut of choices has had an inverse effect on quality to the point where, in Entertainment Weekly critic Darren Franich’s words, “Consumers are left to dig out the needles in an ever-growing haystack of mediocrity.” What if, he suggests, we did less but did it better?
Case in point: television adaptations of popular novels. Masterpiece Theater has long offered prestige adaptations of classic literature, but ever since George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice epic fantasy novels spawned HBO’s Games of Thrones series, the floodgates have been opened to every conceivable book-to-screen adaptation in all genres, including comics and graphic novels. Spurred by the critical acclaim afforded Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (Hulu) and Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies (HBO), over 100 literary adaptations were released on screens big and small in 2020—from Netflix’s Regency period drama Bridgerton (based on the novels by Julia Quinn) to Season 5 of Amazon Prime’s The Expanse (based on the sci-fi novels by James S.A. Corey)—and everything in between.
The best novel-to-screen adaptations remain faithful to the source material while adding their own stamp of originality. They make viewers want to read (or re-read) the book and encourage readers to lift their gaze from the page to characters made flesh-and-blood on the screen. The novels are great to enjoy by themselves but are doubly rewarding when one compares the original to its adaptation. Following are three page-to-small screen adaptations in which the quality of content, like Portia’s quality of mercy in The Merchant of Venice, is not strained but is twice blessed.
Normal People by Sally Rooney (Hulu, 2020)
On its surface, it may look like just another predictable teen romance—lonely unpopular girl defies the odds to hook up with handsome popular jock as emo-rock music fills the soundtrack—but look deeper and you’ll find Normal People is probably the best literary adaptation now streaming on the small screen. Like Sally Rooney’s acclaimed source novel, which switches between the perspectives of two polar-opposite high school students in a small Irish town, it's a strikingly honest look at the complex nature of romance that dispenses with genre tropes and provides an ending that reflects real adult heartache instead of wishful fantasy. Yes, there's an awful lot of sex but it's far from gratuitous—this intimacy bares souls as well as flesh.
The show’s success can be attributed to Rooney’s involvement in the screenplay and the note-perfect casting. Just as diehard Jane Austen fans will forever associate Mr. Darcy with Colin Firth’s portrayal in Pride and Prejudice, one can’t imagine anyone else but Daisy Edgar-Jones as brainy loner Marianne and Paul Mescal as the popular but introverted Connell. These newcomers have true on-screen chemistry and have been rightly applauded for their career-making performances.
Jack Irish (Acorn, 2012-2018), based on the novels by Peter Temple
Australian author Peter Temple wrote four crime novels featuring the rakish Jack Irish—a bumbling “Jack” of all trades (lawyer-debt collector-cabinet maker-amateur detective-Aussie Rules football club supporter), master of none—that were turned into three telemovies and two TV series. Guy Pearce elevates Jack Irish into a charming, self-effacing anti-hero in the mold of James Garner’s Jim Rockford or Elliott Gould’s Philip Marlowe in The Long Goodbye. And, like any cool sleuth, his screen version has a cool ride: a 1960s Studebaker Silver Hawk that Guardian critic Graeme Virtue points out is “as battered and careworn as its owner.”
Jack’s backed by a colorful supporting cast that gives added heft to the books’ sketchily-drawn characters, including the delightful old codgers in the Fitzroy Football Youth Club, Marta Dusseldorp (A Place To Call Home, Janet King) as Jack's love interest Linda Hillier, Bob Hoskins-clone Ray Billings as racetrack gambler "Harry Strang," Aborigine actor Aaron Pederson (Mystery Road) as Harry's sidekick muscle "Cam," and Shane Jacobsen as Jack's belching-farting-junk food-binging detective pal Barry Tregear.
The slight liberties taken with the source material help flesh out Jack’s troubled backstory (we see why he turned to the bottle after his wife was murdered in front of him by a disgruntled client) while the eclectic charms of Fitzroy (Melbourne’s lively bohemian suburb where most of the stories take place) leap off the page thanks to the on-location filming.
Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (Amazon Prime Video, 2019)
From the BBC’s Neverwhere (1996) to Starz’s American Gods (2017), previous adaptations of Gaiman’s books have been disappointing, especially to their author. But Amazon’s Good Omens finally got it right, no doubt because Gaiman took it upon himself to personally adapt the 1990 novel he co-wrote with his friend Terry Pratchett, honoring a pledge he made just before Pratchett died in 2015.
As with Normal People and Jack Irish, the strength of the source material is fortified by its savvy casting, which includes Frances McDormand as God, Michael McKean as Shadwell the Witchfinder, Adriana Arjona as Anathema Device, and Jon Hamm as the hawkish angel Gabriel. But Good Omens is at heart the story of the as the louche, Bentley-driving demon Crowley—and Michael Sheen—as the goody-two-shoes angel Aziraphale—can’t conceal the fun they’re having playing arch-enemies who join forces to prevent the coming of the Antichrist and an imminent apocalypse.
Gaiman is well-known for going back to previously published works and adding later “author’s preferred text” editions, so the many departures from the original text are actually improvements, especially the expansion of the roles of 11-year-old Antichrist Adam Young (Sam Taylor Buck) and his friends The Them. But Gaiman’s greatest departure from the text was adding a new ending, necessitated by his admission that he “ran out of story” by series end. Having averted the apocalypse that both Heaven and Hell wanted, Aziraphale and Crowley are summoned to their respective headquarters for punishment only to turn the tables on their hypocritical masters. It’s a twist that reveals not only how close the two characters have become but also the fine line between Good and Evil itself.