I finished watching “Bag of Bones” last night. I read the book years ago, so I’d forgotten most of the details of the story. Spoilering my opinions, but would love to hear what others thought.
Like the book, I thought it started out really slowly and took forever to get going. It took me several false starts before I could really get into the book, and it took listening to it on an audiobook to really do the trick. I ended up enjoying it, but it took a lot of effort.
As for the movie, I thought Pierce Brosnan did a pretty good job, though I also thought he did some pretty serious overacting. And I had several questions by the time the movie was over:
Why is Brosnan’s character British/Irish, but his brother Sid is clearly American? I don’t think Sid (or Mike) was adopted.
I found it hard to believe that if Sara Tidwell was famous enough that she was making records and film still exists of her in the present day (Mike was watching it on his iPad), that her staff/helpers/handlers would let her just go off and sit by herself in the woods, especially in Maine in 1939 when many people were fairly racist.
How did Mike get away with killing the policeman with a meat tenderizer and poking the old bitch in the neck with scissors in his bathroom, and the cops didn’t even raise an eyebrow about it?
How did Mike assume that he was going to be able to adopt Kyra? He was no relation to her at all–in what world would a court allow a single/widowed man to adopt an unrelated 6-year-old girl? Would that happen even if she had no living relatives, or would she go into foster care? What if her mother (inexplicably) added something in her will about it?)
I too had read the book many years ago and couldn’t remember much. The one vague memory that has always stuck with me was a passage near the beginning where he describes a nightamre or vision of his dead wife and the way King wrote it scared the hell out of me. I’m looking forward to rereading it, or at least that part.
I also wondered about the casting of Pierce Brosnan. I’m generally a fan and at first I thought we were just meant to sort of overlook his accent as a trade off for his fine acting but why include so many Britishisms? Hearing him say “mate” and whatnot was distracting. As for the other points the OP made, well, it is a movie based on a totally fantastic premise so why would you expect it to be realistic in other ways?
Much like a lot of King’s novels the ending was weak but I thought it had some good aspects. I especially liked the flashbacks to Sara Tidwell singing.
I found enough differences from the book that I had to more or less treat it as something with the same name, and occasional character and plot similarities …
I can suspend disbelief with Pierce Brosnan’s accent [my he is aging well though, isn’t he?] but changing a 2 year old into an 8 year old?! [or maybe 3, I would have to go reread it] And it needed to really be an additional 2 hour segment to put the stuff back in that they cut out. Were they afraid to make it 3 nights? He needed to discover some of the whacked out stuff [like the stuff in the basement, the owl thingy and all] and instead of pretty much just jumping into bed with Kyra’s mom, he do the discreet thing [it took him almost until the end of the book to knock boots with her mom. In the beginning he was very careful not to be seen alone behind closed doors with her.]
I loved the singing voice and song choices for Sara Tidwell in the movie.
And I want my money back. God, what a piece of crap. I mean it started out OK, but devolved into a complete mess of very bad writing.
I definately got the feeling that the Mike character was much younger than Pierce Brosnan. When the caretaker mentioned how much he looked like his father…weren’t they the same age???
We were asking some other questions…like ‘How many times is he going to kiss these dream chicks and still be suprised when they turn into rotting corpes when his lips are still attached?’
‘Who the heck has those letter magnets on their fridge who doesn’t have a child in the house?’
"How can Kyra’s mom talk so well with a HUGE hole through the back of her head??’
And most importantly "If Sara actually had the power to rain down a supernatural curse from beyond the grave…why couldn’t she help herself out of that predicament???’
I mean, I could see it if she was an enraged spirit, and her rage was able to affect the present, physical world (I would be able to suspend my disbelief). But she makes that horrible speech before she dies, detailing the specifics of the curse. It just seemd like a hack screenwriter.
It suffered a bit from King TV Adaptation Syndrome, where you’re pulled along and entirely engaged for the whole thing, right up until the climax which seems tacked on as an afterthought and put across with the most laughable effects sequences of the entire production.
All in all we enjoyed it a lot but agreed it just petered out in the end.
I actually kind of enjoyed the end…at least something was happening. I thought the beginning was really boring–but as I said, the beginning of the book was really boring too.
Also, although I did think Brosnan did a decent job, I thought he was all wrong for the character. Too old, too British, and just generally–wrong. I’m not sure why he was cast, honestly. The least they could have done was make his brother British/Irish, too.
As for Sara’s powers–others have accused King of loving “Magic Black People” (I didn’t make up the term, I’m just reporting what I read). You’ll be hard put to find a negative portrayal of a black character in a King book (which is fine) but way more of them have some sort of mystical/psychic/paranormal powers than they should. I think Sara just continues the trend.
I didn’t watch. It’s one of my least favorite King novels. There’s way too much going on for a movie to make sense.
Someone on another board asked why Max Devore killed himself. I checked but Wiki doesn’t explain it. Does anyone know if King gave a reason, or did the suicide need to happen to advance the plot? (I figure maybe memories are fresh after watching the movie.)
I re-read the book a month or so ago in anticipation of watching the TV movie. **Bag of Bones **always was high on my list of very good King works that I enjoyed.
After reading some reviews, especially the one in the Washington Post, I decided NOT to watch the TV show. I didn’t want to be disappointed. Based on the reaction here and elsewhere I’m glad I skipped it. Maybe I’ll Netflix it one day. Maybe.
My impression was that the intent was to conclusively end the curse. Maybe he was worried about potentially purloined progenerative fluid which might start the whole thing up again.
While it wasn’t a horrible adaptation, it wasn’t one of the best. I like the brother of Mike and Jason Priestly being in it, as the brother was Trashcan Man in The Stand and Priestly is in Haven. Kind of mythology shout outs. It would have been better if the brother had been the dead wife’s brother, as I believe he was in the book. It would explain the accent thing and there’s no reason brothers-in-law can’t be friends.
I think my biggest problem with it is that like all poor King adaptations, it feels often like the actors are reading a screenplay. It’s not that their acting is bad, but the script is so awkward that it doesn’t sound like people talking. What can work brilliantly in a novel falls flat on tv.
And as far as the adoption thing, it was made more clear in the book, that since the kid had no family, he applied to foster her and it took months and months for them to clear the process. No one objected and they wanted to be together, so why shouldn’t they?
Bag of Bones is one of my favorite Stephen King novels. I rate this mini-series as a solid meh. They made too many changes for no good reason and it wasn’t nearly as creepy as the book.
I did like how many people were in other SK related things, though, Matt Frewer, Jason Priestly, Annabeth Gish, Peter MacNeill and a few others who have had one episode cameos on Haven.
Why is Sara killing all the children with names starting with the letter “K”? Is it because the name of her child who was was killed also starts with a “K”? Why not just avoid naming your kid with a name that starts with a “K” and save you all that hassle? There are 25 other letters that seem to protect you from Sara Tidwell.
Was Jo’s death natural or was it intentional?
I might think of more later.
I think this was an OK Stephen King novel to read. I read only a handful of SK novels and concluded that SK knows how to start a great story but does not quite know how to end them well. He seems to have alot of build up to the climax then, not knowing how to end them, he just makes things explode.
I thought SK’s novel with the other writer (The Talisman) was good although I didn’t finish it. I prob got bored. I need to find a copy to finish it. BOB was the same for me for the longest time, then I picked it up recently and actually finished it. I tried the Watch tower (whatever) series, but got bored, too.
My favorite is Pet Cemetery. I thought it had a really good story and that it ended well. I think BOB ended OK. Can anyone post a top 10 list of SK novels to read? I think I’ll stick to reading. It seems making movies out of SK novels is a toughie.
