I know that writers often feel that the screen adaptation of their work is an inferior—sometimes even an embarrassing—take on the original. Writers say: I told myself that a novel and a film are two different things. Once you sign that contract with Hollywood, let it go. It’s out of your hands.
So here’s something you’ll rarely hear a novelist say: The first time I saw the film of my first novel, A Simple Favor, I felt like someone had turned on all the lights in the house and uncorked a bottle of something fizzy and delicious. In one of the film’s most memorable scenes, two suburban moms celebrate the pleasures of the afterschool martini. But to me the effect of watching it seemed more like French champagne: sparkling and bubbly in a way that makes everything seem funnier and more interesting.
One of the most enjoyable and unexpected things about writing my first novel was how clearly I heard my characters’ voices, in my head. Sometimes it seemed less like writing than like taking dictation. Every time I turned on my laptop, I heard the reedy, quavering voice of Stephanie, the widowed stay-at-home super-mom (and mommy blogger) who has a shocking secret, and who herself is shocked when she is befriended by the confident, sophisticated fashionista, Emily. I heard the deeper, more confident tones of Emily, whose sinister master plan fails to go exactly as planned. And I heard the British-accented murmur of Emily’s handsome, fatally passive husband, Sean. But it wasn’t until I saw the first leaked photos of the action on the movie set—directed by the brilliant Paul Feig, it was filmed in Toronto—that I realized I’d only had a vague idea of what my characters looked like.
If there were gaps, A Simple Favor’s casting choices filled them in. Stephanie, as it turned out, looked exactly like Anna Kendrick! How could I not know that Emily was the irresistibly seductive ice queen that Blake Lively brought to the screen, and that Sean was a dead ringer, so to speak, for…Henry Golding. The characters who had only brief walk-ons in the novel were brought to life by the skilled actors who played them. Linda Cardellini (whom I’d loved in Freaks and Geeks) , Andrew Rannells, and the always amazing Jean Smart turned these minor presences into complex human beings. Rupert Friend was inspired as Emily’s neurotic, needy, drug-addled fashion-designer boss, and even the kids (Ian Ho and Joshua Satine) were excellent: not too cute, not too precocious, they seemed like actual kids—instead of child actors.
Somehow it didn’t occur to me that a plot featuring a woman who worked as a publicist in the fashion industry would have so much to do with fashion. But the film got that right. Clothing and style were outer expressions of these women’s inner lives, aspirations and self images. I loved Anna Kendrick’s sweetly nerdy rain gear. Her little polka-dot sweater! How desperately poor Stephanie was trying–and failing–to get it right! Nearly every review of the film—and everyone I spoke to about the movie—mentioned the total perfection of the sexually ambiguous, ferociously intimidating, killer pant suits that Blake Lively decided on herself and that became a social media sensation. Emily’s outfits make her look sharp as the knife she is. It’s not false modesty to say that the film was glossier and more stylish than the novel.
Every translation from one form to another presents certain challenges, and I kept being surprised by the ingenious solutions that the screenwriter, Jessica Sharzer, came up with. I suppose what worried me most was the fact that so much of the plot is moved ahead via Stephanie’s goofy blog posts. Her posts progress from cookie-baking tips to cries of dismay and panic when Emily fails to pick up her son from a play date with Stephanie’s little boy—and disappears. I feared that the filmmakers would resort to voice-over, which, I once heard, is what directors do when they can’t think of anything better. Brilliantly, the on-screen Stephanie became a vlogger. Her home-made, sad little videos were the perfect vehicles for her attempts to make contact with the outside world—and later for her cries for help.
It’s always weird when you say something you think is funny—and no else laughs. That was something like the experience I had when my novel was first published. There were so many elements I thought of as comical, but hardly anyone seemed to notice; maybe it was hard for readers to wrap their heads around the fact that a dark, twisty thriller could be humorous when it wasn’t (or even when it was) being disturbing.
So I was overjoyed that the filmmakers got the joke. The film was brightly lit, with the jazzy rhythms of comedy. Its female stars are marvelous physical comedians who played up the contrast between Stephanie’s clumsy self-consciousness and Emily’s take-no-prisoners swagger. No one who sees the film will ever forget the cool grace with which Emily/Blake mixes a martini, or Stephanie/Anna’s double-triple-take when she sees the monumental painting—a hugely suggestive nude—on Emily’s living room wall.
I’d also wanted the novel to say something a little more serious about the pointless and harmful divisions between stay-at-home moms and moms who work. I love that those differences run under the film without it being heavy or preachy.
Like many writers, or so I’ve heard, I can’t quite bring myself to reread my novel. Sometimes I think about it…and I don’t.
But the film is now available on several streaming services, and I’ve watched it at least half a dozen times. And so by now it’s as if the film has taken the place of the novel for me; I can no longer tell the difference, except that the film still has the power to surprise me. Each time I watch it, I think—with a certain tremor of disbelief, a pleasant sense of shock: Wait a second! I invented those characters, that plot. I wrote that!
***
