Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2013 August 21 • Wednesday

Best-selling novels often serve as the first draft of a screenplay. Such was the case with Gidget.

If the book was the first draft, the shooting script must have been something like the twentieth draft. There are traces of the original story and characters but the movie is totally different and vastly inferior product.

Gone are the confidence, intelligence and independence of the novel's heroine. Our cheerfully risk-taking brunette has been transformed into a shy, child-like blonde. Interestingly, while they bump up Gidget's age by a year they make her much more immature.

In the book Gidget has control over her own sexual development. In the movie she's an ugly duckling who wants nothing to do with dating, resents her more voluptuous friends' and interest in boys and wishes that they could spend the summer just playing like kids.

The movie departs from and betrays the book in so many ways that it must have been a shock to fans of the novel. It demotes Gidget from young adult to child.