Given how much I love food, children's books, and movies... well, you know I HAD to say something about this.
Back when I was a kid, it went without saying that Judi and Ron Barrett's excellent Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was one of my favoritest picture books, ever. As a kid, my imagination lit up at the thought of this magical place called Chewandswallow, where food rained down from the sky, where no one went hungry, and where everyone, regardless of color, got to eat yummy American food instead of boring Chinese food.
As an adult, I can appreciate stuff like the beautifully painstaking details of the woodcut illustrations. I remember a few things well. The banks of cumulus hamburger clouds. The Jell-O sunset. The roofless restaurant. And of course, Grandpa's pancakes.
But, then I saw the trailer for the new movie. As it began, I had no idea what they were getting at--it looked like another silly excuse for a Hollywood kid's movie that had been developed within an inch of its life (too many cooks in the kitchen, pardon the pun). The trailer was halfway through before I realized it was a film adaptation of this most beloved children's classics.
First off, while they borrowed heavily from the visual concepts presented in the original book, the movie retains none of the book's rich, charming artistic style. While the real Chewandswallow is a place peopled with colorful characters, busy and alive with warmth, the world of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, the movie, is a cold and empty place where there's only the main character and his female sidekick/love interest. Not to mention, the book includes a ton of incredible details that I'll never get sick of discovering (Rich people frowning over limp broccoli! A newspaper called the 'Chewandswallow Digest'! Lower Intestine Street!). Compare images from the book and the movie in the diptychs I made below, along with some extra images I love from the book.
Secondly, in the book, food raining like manna from the sky is presented as, gasp, a good thing. As a kid I totally ate up (har har) the different scenes of regular citizens going about their day, catching chicken drumsticks on the go and filling their umbrellas with orange juice. In the movie, food is a menace from the get-go.
Thirdly, like Superman, Chewandswallow comes with inherent superpowers. Its ability to shower food on its citizens is totally natural, delightful even. In the movie, the food is the creation of some loser mad-scientist guy. How lame is that?
Lastly, the storytelling in the book is wonderfully tongue-in-cheek and smart, if very straightforward. I really doubt the movie will carry on any of that subtlety and delicacy as it whups us in the face with its fancy effects and loud graphics.
I'm definitely one to agree with this blogger that Hollywood is about to turn this masterpiece into a "shitty, nihilistic movie."
