to begin with, the story is so skipped between particular points that it just gets meaningless about 1/3 into it...
i have read and enjoyed the book as one of the treasures of western literature, as it creates bridges, and, for the time of its writing, is probably one of the first threads between mass communication and the concept of enlightenment...
it is a spiritual book in its entirety, and the movie has nothing to do with that...
the most important moment in the book passes unnoticed in the movie, and not only that, it can be considered to not have happened in the plot...
and i cannot understand why, actually... its all in the book, the scenery, a description of the feeling to the likes of any spiritual writings you can find anywhere, and NOTHING was translated into the movie...
nothing is accurate, not even the historic period the story is situated in... Gray loses everything in the stock market, yet there is no mention of it in this movie simply because it would call the bluff on the vague epoch setting decision...
Oddly enough, the coin scene is played 100% the same as in the book, depicting the same miracle seeking vision of spirituality that turns something elevated into mundane, like what happened to the book here...
India becomes Tibet, the holy Sri Ramana Maharshi in Tiruvannamalai (a vehement opponent of religion) becomes an unknown Buddhist monk in a monastery (!?), spirituality becomes as pointless as religion...
A disappointment... It would have taken a director with a broader and deeper view on spirituality to grasp the treasure the book is... If you have watched this, please do yourself a favor and read the book... Besides everything else, i have the feeling that there was absolutely no research and no depth also in the director's reading of the book, which is disrespectful to say the least...
The book is a testament on life, this movie is just a story with iconic characters in a 100% mundane setting... Too bad this pearl fell in the hands of a pig who apparently refused to read the book, or had the deliberate intention to break the bridge Maugham created between holy India and the west...
Read the book and you will be thankful for the description (because it is told to not really be fiction) and the broad sense of life you can get from it... Watch the movie and you can only have more of the same confusion you can find in any sitcom...
Shallow, superficial, and a waste of time. Besides, it is just insulting to realize something as a story about a baseball match becoming a movie description of a stadium...
Actually, if i had something to do with Maugham or was from India, i would sew this ignorant director... This movie shouldn't be called The Razor's Edge, it is a destructive non-tribute to it, in the hands of a director that probably thought he was better at telling a story than Maugham himself, or whose constricted religious beliefs came clashing in with Maugham's religion free spirituality...
Or to put it bluntly, i get the feeling that a story about enlightenment was told by somebody that believes in heaven and hell... A contradiction in itself...
i have read and enjoyed the book as one of the treasures of western literature, as it creates bridges, and, for the time of its writing, is probably one of the first threads between mass communication and the concept of enlightenment...
it is a spiritual book in its entirety, and the movie has nothing to do with that...
the most important moment in the book passes unnoticed in the movie, and not only that, it can be considered to not have happened in the plot...
and i cannot understand why, actually... its all in the book, the scenery, a description of the feeling to the likes of any spiritual writings you can find anywhere, and NOTHING was translated into the movie...
nothing is accurate, not even the historic period the story is situated in... Gray loses everything in the stock market, yet there is no mention of it in this movie simply because it would call the bluff on the vague epoch setting decision...
Oddly enough, the coin scene is played 100% the same as in the book, depicting the same miracle seeking vision of spirituality that turns something elevated into mundane, like what happened to the book here...
India becomes Tibet, the holy Sri Ramana Maharshi in Tiruvannamalai (a vehement opponent of religion) becomes an unknown Buddhist monk in a monastery (!?), spirituality becomes as pointless as religion...
A disappointment... It would have taken a director with a broader and deeper view on spirituality to grasp the treasure the book is... If you have watched this, please do yourself a favor and read the book... Besides everything else, i have the feeling that there was absolutely no research and no depth also in the director's reading of the book, which is disrespectful to say the least...
The book is a testament on life, this movie is just a story with iconic characters in a 100% mundane setting... Too bad this pearl fell in the hands of a pig who apparently refused to read the book, or had the deliberate intention to break the bridge Maugham created between holy India and the west...
Read the book and you will be thankful for the description (because it is told to not really be fiction) and the broad sense of life you can get from it... Watch the movie and you can only have more of the same confusion you can find in any sitcom...
Shallow, superficial, and a waste of time. Besides, it is just insulting to realize something as a story about a baseball match becoming a movie description of a stadium...
Actually, if i had something to do with Maugham or was from India, i would sew this ignorant director... This movie shouldn't be called The Razor's Edge, it is a destructive non-tribute to it, in the hands of a director that probably thought he was better at telling a story than Maugham himself, or whose constricted religious beliefs came clashing in with Maugham's religion free spirituality...
Or to put it bluntly, i get the feeling that a story about enlightenment was told by somebody that believes in heaven and hell... A contradiction in itself...