By Katherine Repasky
assistant editor | repaskyk@duq.edu

It has become almost an instinct for book lovers to leave the theater after watching an adaptation and proclaim: “The book was better.”

One of the newest book-to-screen adaptations this year was Jane Austen’s “Sense and Sensibility.”

In reverence to my 7th grade self who would read the renowned work under my covers late at night, I made sure to see the film. But as I left the theater, I caught myself and those around me swept up into the same conversations I had heard my mom spiral into after the first “Twilight” movie came out in 2008.

“In the book she had blonde hair!” or “His eyes are meant to be blue!”

Though these nitpicky observations may seem silly and surely audiences cannot expect every detail to be so carefully constructed, they do beg the question of how much book accuracy truly matters in an adaptation.

Something is inevitably lost when a written work becomes a film. But that does not necessarily mean something has been taken away from the story itself.

In fact, sometimes the best thing that can happen to a story is for someone to tell it differently.

Take for instance Homer’s “The Odyssey.” The epic has survived thousands of years, not because of its own words, but because people continue to find new ways to tell it. Operas, paintings, translations, children’s books and multiple film adaptations have allowed for the original narrative’s permanence.

Each time it is reconstructed a new audience is established — one far removed from the world in which it was originally created.

As a work rooted in oral tradition, “The Odyssey” is riddled with extended similes, narrative digressions and complex rhyme schemes. Similarly, Jane Austen’s work is covered in satire and parody belonging to the 18th century. Both are examples of how literary structure does not exactly lend itself to the visual, time-constrained nature of film (even if the movie runs for three hours.)

Perhaps, this is where expectations of adaptations become unreasonable. It is easy to measure faithfulness by how many pages or scenes a filmmaker manages to recreate. When a new adaptation is announced, the internet often runs rampant with photos of the book with captions for the director such as: “Here is your script. Word for word.”

But preserving every detail of a book does not automatically equal conserving what made it worth reading in the first place.

Would Homer enjoy IMAX? Would Jane Austen recognize her female characters without their hair pinned up? These questions are, of course, impossible to answer, but they raise an interesting point about the relationship between an author and those who reinterpret their work.

This relationship becomes even more complicated when we look at the difference between adapting a work that has existed for thousands of years and adapting one whose author is still actively involved in its world.

For example, when the Harry Potter books were adapted onto the silver screen, author J.K. Rowling maintained a degree of creative involvement and approval. In fact, she continues to be fairly involved as HBO plans to adapt her story again, this time into a television series.

In this way, readers are not simply encountering an unfamiliar interpretation of a centuries-old story. They are rewatching a world they have previously only seen in their heads take on a new form, while the person who first created it is still part of the conversation.

That does not mean that an author’s involvement automatically makes an adaptation better. It merely makes the question of creative freedom a little more complicated. After all, is it always the author of the original story who knows how to entice and entertain the best?

Perhaps the best example in opposition to this is Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.”

Based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, Kubrick’s 1980 motion picture is widely considered to be one of the most influential horror films. Yet, King has been particularly critical of the adaptation, which notably differs from his original work.

Kubrick’s interpretation places emphasis on the psychological horror of the Overlook Hotel rather than the deep character developments found in King’s novel.

Yet, it is difficult to argue that Kubrick did not make an exceptional film.

Consequently, a film can be a great movie and a poor adaptation. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Kubrick took the premise of King’s novel and created something that broadened the scope of the horror film genre. In this way, he allows viewers to appreciate what he, as a filmmaker, created without feeling the need to pretend that every creative decision honors the source material.

“I think, in some ways, the conventions of realistic fiction and drama may impose serious limitations on a story,” Kubrick said while discussing his creative initiatives for the film.

The problem arises when filmmakers begin to confuse the freedom to interpret a story with the freedom to disregard what made it meaningful in the first place; something that makes Emerald Fennell’s 2026 adaptation of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” particularly frustrating at times.

“Before I looked to adapt it, I wrote down everything I remembered. Some things were real and some weren’t real. And there were some aspects that were complete wish fulfillment, pervy, a sort of hopefulness,” Fennell said when asked by the National Board of Review what parts from the original novel she was most excited about adapting.

Essentially, the director of “Wuthering Heights (2026)” is claiming that what she wrote, produced and directed was fan fiction.

To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with fan fiction. In fact, some of the most interesting creative works come from people who are so invested in an existing story that they explore its possibilities beyond what the original author provided.

However, there is a difference between simply creating something inspired by a beloved work and inventing new work while presenting it as though its original identity is still intact.

I do not think filmmakers need to agree with every decision an author makes, nor do I think they should be afraid to challenge the source material. But I do think they need to fully understand it first.

Perhaps, “humility” is the best word to sum up what is necessary here. When the filmmaker can consciously acknowledge that there is already something valuable they may not feel the need to change everything, but instead gather themes true to the author to then remodel.

The worst adaptations are those that seem to believe the original story was simply waiting for someone to come along and do it better.

The best adaptations understand that they do not have to compete with the original. They just have to give audiences another reason to love it.