Last weekend I watched three YA book-to-movie adaptations on Lifetime. The first two didn't do much for me: Ten: Murder Island (which was like a take off on And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie crossed with 13 Reasons Why although it is based on Ten by Gretchen McNeil) and Drink, Slay, Love (based on the novel by Sarah Beth Durst); but it was the third one I was looking forward to....
Sea Change by Aimee Friedman
Sixteen-year-old Miranda Merchant is great at science. . .and not so great with boys. After major drama with her boyfriend and (now ex) best friend, she's happy to spend the summer on small, mysterious Selkie Island, helping her mother sort out her late grandmother's estate.
There, Miranda finds new friends and an island with a mysterious, mystical history, presenting her with facts her logical, scientific mind can't make sense of. She also meets Leo, who challenges everything she thought she knew about boys, friendship. . .and reality.
Is Leo hiding something? Or is he something that she never could have imagined?
My Review of the Movie Adaptation:
I haven't read this book, but I did put it on my Amazon books-to-buy-later list when I first saw the preview.
The premise of the Movie was appealing enough; a girl moves to an island to live with her estranged mother after her father's death. There she learns about the mythical Seawalkers (basically mermaids), grabs the attention of the local "it" boy and pisses off his popular girlfriend while herself being drawn to the mysterious boy she's not supposed to be with. (Though the movie sounds nothing like the book's blurb describes it as!)
So it should have been something I would like, right? Instead, the movie was a huge letdown. The first hour and fifty minutes were spent mostly on stuff that didn't matter while everything important was crammed into the last ten minutes of the movie.
The movie left more questions than answers. Was Miranda a seawalker? Did her father die because he stayed out of the water too long? Was T.J. a seawalker Hunter? Did Leo really die at the end? What was up with Amelia and the trident?!?!
I'm in no way blaming the book since I haven't read it yet. It just feels like a lot of the meat of the book might have been left out in the making of the movie.
Did I enjoy the movie? Sure, but I felt like I spent most of the movie waiting for something to happen then the ending was a rushed mess that let me down. Do I still want to read the book? I probably want to read it more now after seeing the movie to see what was left out.
My Rating:
Movie Overall: 3.5 / 5 Stars
Acting: 4/5 Stars
Story Adaptation: 2/5 Stars
The idea was there, the movie just didn't live up to it.
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