Probably as good a film as could have been made from this book although I understand production was troubled. Mel Gibson plays the professor even though you think he'd be obvious casting for the madman - Sean Penn is very good, don't get me wrong, but Gibson's got that glint.
It's tricky material to adapt because there's a lot of talk about dictionaries and the two main characters mostly correspond via letters.
The film makes attempts to include women - Natalie Dormer as the wife of the man killed by Penn and Jennifer Ehle gets a big moment as Gibson's wife but she's basically just Gibson's wife and Dormer's basically someone's wife.
Eddie Marsan is excellent as a guard ditto Stephen Dillane and Steve Coogan. It looks great - there's a fantastic library where Gibson's character does work. Sometimes it gets movie-ish but I'm sympathetic as to why they did that.
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