Word: grisham
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...JOHN GRISHAM...
Pollack said he had thoroughly enjoyed the original story of "The Firm" as told by author John Grisham and had thought it a good book to dramatize, but had realized many parts of it would not translate well to screen...
Adapting a best seller for the movies is like carving flesh down to bone. You keep the skeleton, then apply rouge and silicone until the creature looks human. Any screenwriter adapting the 500-page novel The Firm, John Grisham's tort thriller about tax attorneys fronting for the Mafia, would try to streamline the story, infuse action into a narrative that is mostly lawyers chatting, give an emotional history to characters who are basically plot props and . . . please, a new ending. Grisham spun a lovely yarn -- the venality, the conspiracy, the flypaper guilt -- then let it unravel at the denouement...
...biggest departure from the original blueprint is in the last third. Grisham's detached, careful trail to an explosive conclusion is replaced by direct, face-to-face confrontations in which Mitch and the others involved are in physical danger. The Mafia are portrayed as merely a client of the firm--an important client, to be sure, but not one with familial ties. The ending, which I won't give away, is also...
...Grisham reportedly was very unhappy about the changes. He shouldn't have been, though. For the reworking of "The Firm" solves almost all of the holes in the original plot. Mitch's brief infidelity in the Cayman Islands is a much more explosive issue here. Mitch and Abby's estrangement, which leads to her helping Mitch without his knowledge, adds additional emotional punch to the plot...