How To Break Unbroken. (Or Not.)

[Spoiler alert: Book/Movie plot twists revealed here.]

[This continues from the 1st of a 4-part reflection on biographies...]

Having read Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand's biography on the life of Louis Zamperini, I was quite excited to see the movie. Zamperini was a 1936 USA Olympic runner who became a Japanese POW during WWII. But escaping WWII alive (against all odds) marks only the halfway point of his struggle.

Upon returning to the US, Zamperini's life began to spiral downward, sped on its way by PTSD nightmares, alcoholism and an imminent divorce. The climactic moment in the book is Zamperini's conversion experience at a Billy Graham crusade, after which his whole life was turned around. He gave up the booze. The marriage was saved. The nightmares went away. And Mr. Zamperini spent the rest of his life working in Christian ministry.

This whirlwind summary doesn't begin to cover all of Zamperini's stunning experiences. So I just assumed the movie would follow the plot of the riveting book. Conversion experience and all. Why, I thought, would a movie director risk ruining a $65M movie by messing with the story?

I guess you'd have to ask Ms. Jolie that one, because that's what she did.

She turned the story of the redemption of Louis Zamperini's soul into the story of his surviving WWII. The real climax from the book is literally GONE. Hints of his post-WWI life are pasted onto the screen as quotes during the closing credits, if I understand what I'm reading in the previews.

Did Angelina Jolie really turn the true story of a man's spiritual redemption into a formulaic action flick? So it seemed. I was stunned. I began to muse over how the Lord of the Rings might have looked like under Jolie's direction. Perhaps she would have cut out the Mount Doom sequence? Then in the credits she might inform us that Frodo resolved the situation with the ring and left it in Gollum's possession.

I wouldn't waste my time watching a movie like that. I'd put my money to better uses. And that's what I suspect I'll do with regards to Unbroken, too. Once something is truly broken, there's no use wasting money on it.

At least, that is what I was thinking this morning.

[To be continued...]