I love the Gamache books and was so excited for the movie. I hope at some point, this author who has found herself atop the New York Times best seller list will get her due. Even when they go to the archer's house, the discovery is ho hum. She would never let Gamache push her around like he does in this film. Ruth is one of the most precious, almost frightening of the residents of Three Pines. Not only do they not look the part (bad casting) but the lines they deliver are lacking in breadth. It seems like nothing ever comes to a point. To start with, the movie is just plain dull. To compare them isn't always fair, but good movies made from good books are quite possible.
Let's start with the fact that books and movies are different media. It's sad that the first effort to dramatize this author's work is such a weak effort. The characters, starting with Inspector Gamache, are as well developed as any that I have read in this genre. Louise Penney has created a fascinating subculture in Quebec. I doubt, too, that she had much to say about it. Have the producers/director no loyalty to the books at all? If Penney is one of the executive producers, as referred to in other reviews, I cannot imagine that she feels the movie faithfully represents her literary work. It was peculiar, as well, to see what Penney describes as the surreal, provocative artwork of murder-victim Jane,(thus killing off a main and recurring character in the books) represented as poorly-rendered American Primitive.
It's a shame to see Penney's deeply thoughtful works reduced to such shallowness. Scenes are very short, pushing the plot ahead in only the barest, least thought-provoking manner. The use of that husky, almost-whisper voice (who talks like that?) also betrays the cookie-cutter approach to this movie. The characters, instead of being complex and unpredictable, are stilted, their utterances short, too fast, emotionless-a sign of poor direction and/or poor acting. The cast is impossibly good looking, with that plastic, every-hair-in-place, perfect make-up at all times look so common to made-for-TV movies. There is in the movie none of the sensitivity, insight, philosophizing that makes the books so compelling. How disappointing to find that all that has been reduced to soap opera standards. I wanted to like this movie, having read all of Louise Penney's atmospheric, intelligent, introspective books featuring Armand Gamache.
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