Books vs. Movies
In this podcast we set out to answer the age old question: is the book really always better than the movie?
Books vs. Movies
Ep. 31 Nomadland by Jessica Bruder vs. Nomadland (2020)
What if your journey through life suddenly took a detour, leading you onto the open road in a van or RV? This episode peels back the layers of Jessica Bruder's "Nomadland" and its cinematic counterpart, exposing the harsh realities faced by those who have turned nomadic living from a choice into a necessity. Through engaging reviews with book club friends Terry and Emily, we dissect both the book and the film, exploring how each portrays the gripping socio-economic challenges that push older Americans to embrace life on the road. You'll gain a nuanced understanding of how the book's factual narratives contrast with the film's artistic interpretation, offering a window into the lives of those navigating this unconventional lifestyle.
The housing crisis and its domino effect on middle-class aspirations take center stage, as we weigh in on the rising costs and stagnant wages that make home ownership seem like a distant dream for many. This episode doesn't shy away from the stark class divide that forces individuals into unconventional living arrangements to escape unaffordable housing markets. We draw from personal stories to underscore the emotional toll of the housing struggle, making a strong case for the need for equitable housing solutions that allow everyone, regardless of career or income, to have a safe and secure place to call home.
Privilege and inequality weave through the exploration of nomadic living, revealing stark disparities in how different demographics experience life on the road. Listen as we unpack the racial and economic factors that exacerbate these inequalities, particularly how exploitative labor practices by corporations like Amazon further complicate the plight of nomadic workers. Finally, we reflect on "Nomadland's" success at the Academy Awards, weighing the merits of the film's artistic achievements against the book's raw, impactful portrayal of poverty in America. Join us for a deep dive into the intricate tapestry of privilege, inequality, and resilience found among America's nomadic communities.
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Welcome to Books vs Movies, the podcast where I set out to answer the age-old question is the book really always better than the movie? I'm Yuvia, an actress and book lover based out of New York City, and today I will be discussing Nomadland Surviving America in the 21st Century by Jessica Bruder, and its 2020 adaptation, nomadland starring Frances McDormand. Hi everyone, hello, I'm so happy to be recording and back, and, yeah, it felt weird to kind of be on a little mini hiatus, but I also didn't want to pressure myself to release, just to release. So, anyway, I have three episodes for sure headed your way, including this one. So this one and two more, and then I will. I'll figure out what I'm reading next, but yeah, if the sound quality is a little different this time, I am currently in Texas visiting my family. I am here celebrating my goddaughter's first birthday, and so I think she's napping right now, but you might, once she wakes up, you might hear her in the background crying. Voldemort is, of course, in the room with me, as always. Orlando is actually in the room with me right now too, but he's has his headphones on and is trying to be quiet so that I can record. But, yeah, you might hear a lot more noises than usual. You might not, but anyway, I am here and I'm back and I'm excited. So, all right, let's get started.
Speaker 1:So Nomadland Surviving America in the 21st Century by Jessica Bruder, was first published in 2017. And this is a non-fiction book that takes a look at people generally in their late 60s late 70s, that make up workers. These workers work in beet fields, they work in campgrounds, they work in Amazon's camper force program. These are low-cost workers who are made up of mainly older adults who move around. These adults were affected by the great recession of 2008 and, more often than not, had no other option than to start living in RVs and modified vans, forming a community of nomads, and they travel all over the country picking up temporary work in just whatever's available seasonally at that time. This is a very difficult book to read because it is something that scares me, because it is something that can happen to anyone. Really, a lot of these people, these older adults, did everything quote-unquote right. They had a degree, they had a stable job and then, for one reason or another, everything just fell apart. They owned their own home, they were married, they had children, and then they reached a point in their lives, in which the government and society as a whole failed them and they had no option but to start living as nomads and live these very unpredictable lives. And, yeah, it's scary, like that's something that scares me, like I hope that I'm never have to. That never happens to me, obviously, but you don't know and it really can happen to anyone. But, at the same time, we're given a glimpse into these people and just how resilient they are and how they make this life work. And, yeah, it's a very inspiring book in some ways.
Speaker 1:The 2020 adaptation of Nomadland is directed by Chloe Zhao and stars Frances McDormand, and it follows Fern, who is a woman in her 60s who, after losing everything due to the Great Recession, starts journeying all over the United States as a van-dwelling nomad. So this is also a very different adaptation. As I said, the book is a non-fiction book. Some of the people that we meet in the book are featured in the film, but the film overall focuses on Frances McDormand's character, fern, who is a fictionalized character inspired by the people that are introduced in the book, but overall, this is a fictionalized account of that. So, in order to have adapted Nomadland in a more faithful way, they would have needed to either just straight up do a documentary or do a biopic on Linda, who is the main nomad that the book focuses on. We do meet some other people, but Linda is definitely the focus. So it definitely would have had to have been more of a biopic or a documentary. But this is a fictionalized telling of the events of the book, or not fictionalized telling of the events of the books. This is a fictionalized character inspired by the real life people that live this way.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, this was kind of I wasn't really sure how I was going to tackle this book versus movies episode, because it is so different and not in terms of, like, the changes that were made. Like obviously there were a lot of changes, but it's it's as I said, it's not really. It's more inspired by the book as opposed to being like a faithful adaptation of the book. But yeah, I I really wanted to focus on the things that that stood out to me about the book and some interesting facts that were brought about in making the film. But yeah, so I think what really stands out to me the most in the book is just how much more anti-Amazon it makes me. It made me I don't shop at Amazon really at all.
Speaker 1:I'm not gonna say I never shop there, but I really try to reduce the amount of times that I shop at Amazon. I really only shop there. I have worked on projects with friends in which they pay me with, like an Amazon gift card, so that's really the only time I shop on Amazon. Every other time, like for me, my purpose is what I need to buy for my day-to-day life. I just refuse to shop on Amazon for that reason, because of how exploitative it is of its workers, and this book really talks about those different exploitations.
Speaker 1:And there's also, just like Linda, who, as I said, is the focus of the book. She was also very disillusioned after working at Amazon because she just saw the overconsumption, like people just buying, just seeing the things that were being ordered and just knowing that they weren't made very well, they were very cheaply made, and just the amount of things that are obviously going to end up in a landfill or just polluting the earth and things like that. And that's something I feel very passionate about too. So that those are just like things that stood out about the book. But anyway, yeah, it's really interesting because this is a quote from the book that really, that stands out to me. This is a quote from the book that really that stands out to me.
Speaker 1:America is the wealthiest nation on earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters, and that is something that speaks to me because it is something. The amount of people that live in poverty in this country and there's really no reason for anyone. We have the resources to make sure that everyone is living like we're in the first, like in the first world country that we are, and that is just not the reality for a lot of people, and we view people most of the time that live in poverty as, oh, that's your fault, because you never something to aspire to, and there's nothing wrong with aspiring to that. But we have to remember that most of us were closer to becoming poverty stricken than we are to becoming billionaires, and that's just a reality that we have to face and, again. There's no reason that we can't do more to make sure that there aren't so many poverty stricken people in this country.
Speaker 1:And, as I said, a lot of these people never would have thought that they were going to end up living this way. They lived comfortable middle class lives with homes, and they were living what they had, everything that society told them they needed to have. They had families, they had homes, they had cars, but after the Great Recession, just things went downhill for them financially for different reasons. Some of them lost their jobs due to the Great Recession and, because of their age, were just never able to find jobs again. Others, because of disabilities or whatever, were also just not able to rejoin the job market. So they had to start making difficult decisions difficult decisions that and the biggest expense in most of these people's lives was rent or their mortgage payment, and so if they no longer wanted to live paycheck to paycheck, essentially, a lot of them felt like they had to give up their biggest expense and move into the van and RV. And again, a lot of them this wasn't a choice that they would have made for themselves originally, it was just something that they had to do, and this class divide seems to be getting bigger and bigger and a lot of people are not being given the same opportunities as others, and so this just furthers that divide.
Speaker 1:And something that's really emphasized in the book is how the last free place in America is a parking spot. So you move into your RV, your van and you travel season depending on the the season to wherever the jobs are and you live relatively for free by just parking somewhere, and even that's getting increasingly difficult. Not a lot of places are accepting of people parking in their lots overnight or anything like that, so parking in neighborhoods is also kind of tricky. This is another quote from the book that kind of discusses why some people felt like they had no choice. So quote wages and housing costs have diverged so dramatically that for a growing number of Americans, the dream of a middle class life has gone from difficult to impossible. As I write this, there are only a dozen counties and one metro area in America where a full-time minimum wage worker can afford a one-bedroom apartment at a fair market rent. You'd have to make at least $16.35 an hour more than twice the federal minimum wage to rent such an apartment without spending more than the recommended 30% of income on housing. The consequences are dire, especially for the one in six American households that have been putting more than half of what they make into shelter. For many low-income families, that means little or nothing left over to buy food, medication and other essentials. End quote.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, these are all just things that I've faced personally. I know that that's something that I've heard a lot from, like our parents both Orlando and my parents like they really wish that we would just settle down and buy a house and start earning the equity of having a house and all of that. And we've wanted to buy a house, we've been wanting to buy a house for a while. But we look at the options of where, ideally, we would want to live and there isn't anything within our budget Right now. It's better for us to stay renting. Is that what we want to do? Is that what we want to do for the rest of our lives? No, but where we are right now in our lives, it makes sense to continue renting, and right now that means renting an apartment.
Speaker 1:And while we figure out next steps and all of that, by even then the struggle, we found the amount we struggled to find an apartment we can afford. And so where we were living previously in New Jersey, we were paying 1400 for a one bedroom and then when we moved back into the city, we paid $1,600 for a studio apartment. And we paid both of those, no problem. But it was such a struggle to find someone that would rent to us, because in New York you need to make 40 times the rent. So, despite the fact that we can easily afford an apartment that's $1,600, no one was willing to look at us. No one was willing to accept our applications because they would see our annual income and deny it. They wouldn't even bother looking at it. They'd see it and most of the places would either ghost us. Only one realtor was kind enough to say the management company isn't even going to bother accepting your application because of your income. That was the one person that was straight up with us. Everyone else kind of just ghosted us and it's really unfortunate that no one was willing to give us the chance and the amount that we struggled just for that.
Speaker 1:So you can only imagine the people that their income is a little bit more, and I know there's going to be a lot of people that are listening to this and say, well, that's your fault because of the career you chose or whatever. And it's like everyone. Everyone deserves to have a place to live. Everyone deserves to not worry about whether they're going to have home to live in one day and or not in the next. And it doesn't matter what job industry you choose. I mean you, everyone has a right to live comfortably. But anyway, these nomads living nomadically I feel like has kind of gotten glorified lately because of all the people that do choose the van life willingly and kind of glorify it.
Speaker 1:It does take a certain amount of privilege to be able to just live out of your van willingly and have that be your life. Whether that be, you work a remote job that pays very well, that allows you to live a lifestyle in which you're a lot less likely to be targeted as a van dweller, as a nomad, for being white, than you would if you're Black. But at the end of the day, something that the book also touches on which, again, if you weren't really anticipating this style is how much society doesn't want anyone living off the economic grid. It is very difficult to find a job if you don't have a permanent address. It is very difficult to get a driver's license to apply for a lot of things that you need without having a physical address, and there's just so many. There's just so many reasons that you need to have a physical address. But anyway, this quote is kind of talking about why the majority of van dwellers are white. So, quote a vast majority of van dwellers are white. The reasons range from obvious to duh. But then there's this Linked below the post was an article about the experience of traveling while Black.
Speaker 1:That made me think. America makes it hard enough for people to live nomadically, regardless of race. Stealth camping in residential areas in particular is way outside of the mainstream. Often it involves breaking local ordinances against sleeping in cars. Avoiding trouble, hassles with cops and suspicious passersby can be challenging, even with the get-out-of-jail-free card of white privilege. And in an era when unarmed African Americans are getting shot by police during traffic stops, living in a vehicle seems like an especially dangerous gambit for anyone who might become a victim of racial profiling.
Speaker 1:All that made me think about the instances when I could have gotten in trouble and didn't. One time I got pulled over at night while reporting in North Dakota. The cops asked where I was from and recommended some more local tourist attractions before letting me off with a warning. In general, people didn't give me grief when I was driving Halen. I wish I could chalk that up to good karma or some kind of cosmic nebulance, but the fact remains I am white. Surely privilege played a role, end quote.
Speaker 1:So, again, talking about that kind of privilege that comes with just this current glorification of living in a van and everything there's that this book just has a lot of quotes that spoke to me. So when talking about the book since they are, since the film and the book are so different I'm really just focusing on why the book spoke so much to me. But here's another great quote the economy is a game. This game should be about non-essential things Motorcycles, computers, televisions, a person feeding their family, staying alive, having shelter. That should not be subject to an economy. End quote. And yeah, again, this book just really focuses on why people might end up being a nomad, and the majority of the people, as I said, are doing this because they had no other choice. They lost their homes due to the great recession, they lost their jobs, they have a disability, whatever the reason, and no matter what that reason, they should have still been able to keep their homes. So again, see, here's a quote on one of the many quotes that just continue to fuel my anti-Amazon fire Quote the reason Amazon can take on such a slow and efficient workforce, noted one itinerant worker on her blog, tales from the Rampage.
Speaker 1:Since they are getting us off government assistance for almost three months of the year, we are a tax deduction for them. End quote. At the end of the day, amazon wants a cheap labor force. They want people. They don't want a permanent workforce, they want people that are temporary, that are seasonal, so they can keep their prices low. Obviously, the longer someone stays on board, the more benefits have to come in, the more X, y and Z you know, and something. A lot of the times there's permanent damage being done to these people's bodies. Permanent damage being done to these people's bodies.
Speaker 1:There's one point in the book in which one of the workers walked the equivalent of 18 miles, I think, or I don't remember exactly. Yeah, I want to say it was the equivalent of 18 miles during their work shift. That is kind of. That's just mind-blowing, and it's one of those things where they're not getting proper breaks. They have to meet a certain quota, so much so that they're afraid of going to the bathroom, because the minute spent in the bathroom is minutes in which they're not meeting their quota. And if they really need this job, then yeah. Here's another quote the top 1% now makes 81 times what those in the bottom half do. When you compare average earnings for American adults on the lower half of the income ladder some 117 million of them earnings haven't changed since the 1970s End quote.
Speaker 1:So again, I know that there's going to be a lot of people that are blaming people's choices or whatever. I refuse to look at it that way. We never know people's circumstances. What led them to maybe have to work a minimum job, minimum wage job, for their entire adult lives, and maybe they were. We just don't know. We don't know. And regardless, if someone has a family that they're trying to provide for, even if they don't, they shouldn't have to choose on whether they, whether or not they have shelter or anything like that. But yeah, there's.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of things that just really spoke to me in this book and that, like there's some, some people are living off of their retirement. Again, we're told that if we do everything right, we should be able to retire and live comfortably off of retirement. And the fact of the matter is that a lot of these people were not. They reached retirement age and, despite having a job that should have, there was just, I said a lot. Like I said, a lot of these people did everything right, but they're told that they should. They should have done to live the American dream and one simple turn of events prevented them from being able to enjoy that American dream once they retired. And I don't think that's fair for anyone. And, yeah, there's some people that, because of a disability, were unable to, had to leave their job way early and a lot earlier than expected, and were then unable to apply for retirement or retire properly, or whatever the correct term is, and are living off their disability check. And a lot of them it was. They had to make $200 a week, their $200 check, disability check last. Yeah, it was just.
Speaker 1:I really, really highly recommend everyone read this book. This is just a book that really spoke to me and it really made me sympathetic. I mean, I already held these beliefs, but it just like kind of really cemented my beliefs even more. And for anyone out there that I said, like I said, is listening and is kind of just like well, that's their fault, blah, blah, blah, like. Read it and learn to sympathize, and I think it will make you sympathize because you'll read about these people and just the decisions they had to make and what led to their circumstances was not always their fault. And a lot of this book also touches on the fact that.
Speaker 1:There's also some things in the book that also make me sad for the, for the people that it talks about, because it does talk about how, since they're the older, like boomer generation, they're viewed as like hard workers because they do work hard, which is great, but the implications were like as opposed to like the younger generation, which is lazy now I'm not here, I'm not here to add to the whole like well, nobody wants to work with these days, blah, blah, blah, whatever. It did make me sad for the older generation in the sense that they have this pride in their work which they should. I have a lot of pride in the work that I do. I don't like being lazy, I don't. My parents just really instilled this pride in my work thing, belief system, which I have, and I love that I have. So I agree with them in that I like if you're lazy, if you have no interest in actually working, like don't apply for a job, we don't need you, but they don't have, like any sense of work-life balance, and that's something that I've really started to embrace. I work very, very hard and I take a lot of pride in my work, but I've also started to realize that working past that time that I'm supposed to doesn't benefit me. It benefits the company and it doesn't make them any more loyal to you. It really doesn't. So, while I'm on the clock, you have me, I'm there, but yeah, so like there was that mentality that did make me a little bit sad for the people featured in the book. It's like you should also have some time for yourself. Work-life balance is perfect. Everyone needs it, yeah, but anyway, let's get a little bit into the book. I mean the film. I really do recommend the book and I think it'll really open your mind into and and make you sympathize and and remember that, at the end of the day, we're all just people and we're we want what's. We want to thrive and not just survive, but anyway, so nomadland the film is is the. It was came out in 2020. It stars francis mcdormand as the fictional character Fern, and Chloe Zhao. She won an Oscar for this film.
Speaker 1:She wasn't really well known before Nomadland. She had released some other indie films I was going to say indie and then independent came out, so it came out as independent films. But yeah, she had done other independent films before and her kind of style is working with people that are not actors. Like if you look at some of her other indie films, the people that she cast were actual and I don't know the name of the film, but she made a film about like ranch life and a cowboy and she cast like actual cowboys and people that lived in that area where the film was set. Like she did not hire professional actors. So that's kind of her style and she did that in this as well. She started introducing big name actors, with Frances McDormand as the lead. There's another character played by David Straithairn who, again David Straithairn, is a professional actor.
Speaker 1:But the majority of the nomads featured in the film are the actual nomads that we read about in the book and they're not acting, they are themselves, they're living their normal nomad lives and it was caught on film but they're not trained professional actors. So that's kind of. The interesting thing about this film is that you see Linda, linda from the book. She's in the film. Swankie, who's in the book, is in the film. So a lot of the nomads featured in the film are actual nomads that are in the book and some who are not in the book but are part of the van dwelling nomad community. Frances McDormand did travel throughout seven states in the van that was used in the film and she actually performed several of the jobs done by the people who do this nomadic work on the daily and a lot of the the nomads that she met, again swanky bob wells, who is the one in charge of the rubber tramp rendezvous. They actually had no idea that she was a Hollywood star.
Speaker 1:There is a Moshi, thank you for listening. Moshi's my friend and he's he works with me as well and he takes classes where we work, and so over the summer he did this program and he saw someone perform a really famous monologue from the film. He saw them perform during that lab. But that monologue that you saw, moshi, and it's spoken by Bob Wells and it's this monologue in which he talks about his son and how his son ended up committing suicide. Bob had no idea that Frances McDormand was a famous Hollywood actor and he delivered this monologue to her after. So Frances McDormand in the film delivers this monologue about her late husband and they have a moment of connection. Bob Wells delivered that monologue about his son to her without realizing that this was a fictional monologue that she just gave to him, but he was so moved by this monologue that he delivered his monologue and, yeah, it was completely unscripted. It was just him genuinely connecting with Frances McDormand's monologue and he felt compelled to deliver this monologue to her. So, yeah, so there's like really cool little moments of authenticity that happened with the actual nomads and Francis McDormand. That might not have happened otherwise or as organically if it had been like scripted and cast with actual actors and, funnily enough, it looks like originally.
Speaker 1:As I said, chloe Zhao is kind of with the exception of Eternals, which is like her big Hollywood film she tends to cast people as um themselves. She doesn't cast professional actors to create characters. So originally she had cast Linda, linda May, to be the protagonist of the film, but then Frances McDormand I think Frances McDormand is the one that wanted to bring this story to life. So when she was officially brought on board, she and Chloe Zhao decided to create a fictional character for Frances McDormand and still feature Linda May and the other nomads. But yeah, so this film is a fictional. It follows a fictional nomad, but Frances McDormand did really commit to actually living as a nomad as much as she could and she embodied it so well that she was actually offered several jobs as a nomad because people truly believed that she was a nomad. But yeah, so this is a very it is a very slow film. I know that this one of those Oscar films that a lot of people feel didn't deserve the best picture win because they feel like it's very slow, boring. Orlando, I know, was a lot more invested in the actual, the stories of the actual nomads versus the fictional story of Fern, and I have to say I agree with that.
Speaker 1:This film did win three Academy Awards. It won the Francis McDormand won for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role, chloe Zhao won for Directing and it was also the Best Picture. It won Best Picture in the 2021 Oscars. I will say I don't necessarily agree with Frances McDormand winning for this. She was so that year. She was up against Andrew Day, for the United States, versus Billie Holiday, carey Mulligan in Promising Young Woman, vanessa Kirby in Pieces of a Woman and Viola Davis in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Frances McDormand was great, don't get me wrong, but I don't know. I personally would have awarded it to Viola Davis in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom Like she. Just she did so great, she did so great in that role and then, in terms of it didn't really bother me that Chloe Zhao won for directing.
Speaker 1:But in terms of best picture, nomadland was competing against Judas and the Black Messiah, mank Minari, promising Young Woman, sound of Metal, the Father, the Trial of the Chicago 7, promising Young Woman, sound of Metal, the Father, the Trial of the Chicago 7, and it ended up going to Nomadland. And I you know I have not seen every single one of these, but I've heard Sound of Metal is really good and Minari was really good as well and I know people were rooting more for those to be the best picture winner of the ones I've seen. I've seen Nomadland, obviously, judas and the Black Messiah Promising Young Woman and the Father. I definitely think I would have awarded it to either Judas and the Black Messiah or the Father.
Speaker 1:I liked those films a little bit more than Nomadland, but I mean it is what it is, not saying it's not well-deserved, but just my opinion. I do think there were better films and, yeah, despite it, frances McDormand was great, but I definitely would have probably given it more to Viola Davis. Vanessa Kirby was also fantastic in Pieces of a Woman, but anyway, yeah, so I know this episode was definitely a lot different. It was just. It was something I originally thought I was going to tackle it the way I usually do, but there was just. Even though it is technically based on the book, it is its own story, its own thing and there really was no way to compare such a factual, nonfiction book with a fictional inspiration, something that was inspired by the book and just fictionalized. So I hope you still enjoyed this episode. I know that I still enjoyed it and it was. It was new territory for me. So, yeah, I tried to be as confident as I usually am in delivering my verdicts and everything, but this is just so different, completely new territory. But I think I do like this format in case I have something like this in the future. But anyway, let's, let's get into it.
Speaker 1:I rated the book four stars. I really really highly recommend the, the, the story. My friend, book friend, book club friend Emily, disagrees with me. She really did not like this book. So maybe you'll agree more with Emily than you did with me. But I think the biggest takeaway Emily really did not like this book. But I'm going to read her final sentence of her review because, to sum it all up, in her opinion there are better books about American poverty and the policies to remedy it. So while this book did speak to me, it did not speak to her and she has read better books about American poverty and the policies to remedy it. I clearly have not read those books. So this book really did speak to me. So this book really did speak to me. If you've read a lot of other books on poverty and how to fix it and maybe you'll agree more with Emily. But if you need like a great introduction crash course, I think this is the way to do it because that's what it was for me.
Speaker 1:But book club friend Terry agrees with me and she also rated the book four stars. She says that it also made her look at Amazon in a whole new way. So I mean to me it wasn't introducing Amazon to me in a whole new way. I've felt very strong negative feelings about Amazon for a while the more I've done research into the company practices and kind of the shady business dealings. But anyway, it did make her look at Amazon in a whole new way and she also found it an interesting way to learn about the country. And she's not sure she could cope with all the challenges of living that sort of life. And I agree, terry, I agree, which is why it terrifies me that this could happen to me in the future. I'm hoping that it doesn't but again, I'm very aware that this is a reality, that it could happen, but I'm going to do everything I can to hopefully not let it happen to me. But anyway, that's just my opinion and the opinion of Terry and the opinion of Emily. Emily does not have a star rating for it, so I can't tell you what she rated it, but she really did not like it and I already summed it up for you as to why. But anyway, four stars for me and Terry and a no from Emily.
Speaker 1:And I rated the book.
Speaker 1:I mean, I rate the film 3.5 stars. So I did like the film the first time I watched it. I rewatched it for this episode. I did like it a little bit more the first time I watched it. The second time around it was a little bit more difficult to get through. I think this is definitely this is not going to be a film I'm going to watch again in the future. I think this is too undone for me.
Speaker 1:Orlando was not a huge fan of the film. He was definitely a lot more invested, as I said, in the other characters than Francis McDormand's character. He found the glimpses into the nomadic lifestyle a lot more interesting and a lot more engaging than following Fern's journey throughout the film. So that means that the book is the winner. Yes, I highly, highly, highly recommend the book.
Speaker 1:If you're not, if this is not a subject that you're interested in or you're not really interested in, like slow films, if you don't mind them, check out the film. But if you really need something, a lot more action, action like packed and to keep you engaged, then I say skip the film and read just the book. But anyway, that is it for this episode. Thank you for turning tuning in. Please leave this podcast a rating and review so that more people can hopefully discover this podcast and join us in our little tiny community. And I'm very excited because next time we will be talking about Watchmen by Alan Moore and its adaptation Watchmen starring Patrick Wilson, malin Ackerman and directed by Zack Snyder, and I'm very excited because this is an actual. This is a podcast episode that will be featuring my guest, the lovely Orlando Rodriguez. You've heard me talk about him quite a lot and now you're actually going to get to meet him. All right, see you next time.