The film adaptation of John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” opens with scenes of a woman in a red dress, running through fields in desperate escape from some undefined terror. Her flight frames the movie, as though she is running, headlong, into the nameless dread of the future. As it turns out, the woman is in fact running from Lennie, and Lennie and George are running from her protectors. In the novel, we do not become aware of exactly what happens to cause her fear until chapter three, when George is speaking with Slim, the skinner. Difference within sequence of scenes such as this help reader to develop a better understanding of things that have happened in the storyline.
George is “small and quick, dark of face, with restless eyes and sharp, strong features”. He is a reasonably intelligent, hard working ranchman. Lennie on the other hand always manages to find trouble. He’s the opposite of George “a huge man, shapeless of face, with large, pale eyes, with wide, sloping shoulders”. He is equally as hardworking and honest as George but his simple childlike mind always finds him trouble wherever he goes. In the novel Lennie is compared to animals such as a bear and horse, “drank with long gulps, snorting into the water like a horse”. In the beginning of the novel and the movie we get an idea that Lennie is very childlike when he drops his blankets and dips his whole head under the green pool. George tells him over and over not to drink like that, because he “ain’t sure it’s good water”. Lennie doesn’t even check if the water is clean or not nor does he listen to George. We also get the idea that George is like a father figure to Lennie because he’s always telling him what to do, what to say, where to go etc. He basically looks after Lennie; George’s been looking after him since his aunt Clara passed away. George and Lennie’s friendship forms the core of the story. Its sincerity is never questioned. The men are inseparable, and what keeps them together is the dream that they share. The dream of one day owning their own farm, and as Lennie often says, “live off the fatta’ the lan”. This vision is articulated by George in the form of the story he tells Lennie; it’s Lennie’s faith that enables the hardened, cynical George to imagine the possibility of the dream becoming real-and Lennie’s death shatters George’s hope. We are shown this realisation as a series of flashback in George’s mind after he shoots Lennie.
The movie of “Of Mice and Men” had many differences while still giving the same message that the book was portrayed to have. One of the major differences was that Candy never came into the room when Lennie and Crooks were talking to each other. This was major because Crooks never found out that the plan was true about the little house. In the book after he heard Candy talk about it he wanted to get in on the deal. Also the movie it never showed Lennie have his illusion of his Aunt Clara and the rabbits when he was waiting by the pond. The last major difference was that George never hesitated to shoot Lennie in the movie and in the book it was very hard for him. After George shot Lennie, Slim came to comfort George and take him out for a drink.
The characters in the novel and the movie had many differences. In the book George was shown to hate Curley with a passion. In the movie George didn’t seem to like Curley too much but he definitely didn’t hate him like in the book. In the movie Curley’s wife seemed to be attracted to Lennie and enjoyed his presence because he was nice. In the book she talked to him only because she was amused by Lennie’s stupidity. Lennie was explained as a beast in the book and, “his shoulders could fill the doorway”. In the movie he was stronger and bigger than the others were but not the extreme amount that the book portrayed him to be. Every other thing about the characters was extremely as the book told it.
I felt that the movie was great and I loved it as much as I loved the book. I would give the movie a 10 out of 10 because it was just so great. The only parts I didn’t like were in the end it made me cry. I felt so into the dream that Lennie and George shared that I was very sad when it was destroyed. I am sure that if I didn’t watch the movie in a classroom I would have gotten more out of it but none the less it was a masterpiece. Unlike all of the other movies that are translated from a book this one was quite accurate to the book. It was very hard to point out the differences from the book and that is why I enjoyed watching the movie so much.
