Book vs. Movie Review: Turtles All the Way Down by John Green
So, I honestly didn’t realize this book was even being made into a movie. This post is totally out of my scheduling order, but my sister called me and told me the movie had been released and I just had to do a book vs. movie review for it since I loved the book so much! You can check out my book review here since I already reviewed it a while back, but keep reading below for my Turtles All the Way Down movie review and my thoughts on the book vs. the movie!
Blurb
Aza Holmes is a lot of things. Normal is not one of them. She has anxiety and another crippling mental health disorder called OCD. She knows that her thoughts are irrational. She knows that she will not die. Well, most likely not die. Maybe won’t die. No, she won’t die as long as she gives into her thoughts. As long as she changes the Band-Aid and puts the hand sanitizer in the wound on her finger that she never lets close. She won’t die from her intrusive thoughts. She won’t….
Book Review | Heidi Dischler
I wrote a whole book review for this novel a while back and won’t go into the review here. Definitely a five-star read if you think you’re interested! You can check out my full book review for this novel here.
Movie Review | Heidi Dischler
I have so many feelings about this movie. I’m going to try and say them articulately, but they might come out a jumbled mess because it made me so emotional.
First, I’d like to start with the acting. These actors and actresses were AMAZING. I don’t think I could have chosen better for the entire cast and I was so happy with them overall. They were charming, poignant, real, and so many other things that just made this movie come to life. Isabela Merced was perfect as Aza Holmes and made me cry with her performance at times (which is a feat in itself because my sister calls me heartless when it comes to sad movies since I never cry 👀). I also really liked Cree as Daisy. She did phenomenally in encompassing Daisy’s whole personality. However, I wish the writers would have given a little bit more to her character, but I’ll touch on the more later.
There are a few things that I want to mention that I can’t really critique fairly. First, I personally loved the inner monologue that Aza had because you could literally feel her panic, but I also knew exactly what that panic was coming from and all the backstory that comes with it. I can’t say if people who have never read the book before agree with that (and I’d love to hear your thoughts below if you haven’t read the book, but you’ve watched the movie!). The other thing is Davis’ dad and the whole “mystery” there. I, obviously, knew exactly what was going on. I’d be curious to find out what other’s think if they haven’t read the book.
So, back to Daisy’s character and wanting a little more there. There’s a point in the movie where Daisy and Aza get into a fight over something Daisy has written (I’ll spoil exactly what it was below once I finish the review). Well, I didn’t feel like there was enough explanation in that fight and it made Daisy seem little shallow in the movie in my opinion.
One of my favorite moments in the movie was when Aza meets her hero (you’ll know who it is if you’ve watched the movie), and the fight between her and her mom. Not because it’s a fight and I like drama, but because of the raw emotion that I felt when watching this interaction. It was so well done and this was actually one of the parts that made me cry.
Overall, this movie is definitely so well made and thought out. I think it depicted Aza’s mental health issues in a way that still made her seem human without casting her aside to focus on her illness. It was emotional, centered a lot around friendship, had romantic subplots (always a plus), and did the book justice, which, when you think about it, what more could a reader ask for?
Where to Watch: Max
Book vs. Movie (The Differences)
Here comes major spoilers so don’t go any further if you still need to read the book or watch the movie!!!
The Differences:
Here are a few of the differences that I spotted. While minor, they still strayed from the source material, so I wanted to mention them.
- The first big difference that I noticed was the fact that Aza had a professor who she admired and wanted to go to the same college as her. I thought it was a cute little addition, but it definitely wasn’t in the book. They actually got the professor to tell Aza about the “turtles all the way down” story instead of Daisy, which, I guess, was okay.
- The other thing that was different was the fact that Daisy and Aza found Davis’ father’s jacket with a suicide note in it. From what I remember, they just found his body and nothing else. Not sure why writers felt the need to add that, but it didn’t change much for me.
- Now, this isn’t necessarily a difference, but more of a “I wish they’d done a little better”. So, with Daisy’s fan fiction, I feel like you get a lot more in the book and Ayala’s character wasn’t just a “let’s shit on Aza” thing. I could’ve totally just given Daisy more credit in the book, but she at least apologized after the accident and told Aza that Ayala would die a hero’s death. While Daisy did apologize in the movie, it didn’t feel like enough. I wish they had included the part about Ayala having to die a hero’s death.
That’s really it. I didn’t see anything else that was glaringly obvious in terms of differences or omissions. Like I said above, overall, it was a fantastic adaptation.
