pbarron-1

That Was Then... This Is Now (1985)

"The movie was okay, but the book was better"

In English class, we read S.E. Hinton's saga of teenage angst. The students were enthralled with the story. While the setting was from years past, the ethical questions raised and the teenage situations were quite apropos. The story generated a great deal of quality discussion in class...education at it's finest.

The movie, however, was a bit of a disappointment for us. Taken by itself, it was a fine example of 80's brat-packish fluff. It was formulamatic, but entertaining. One could hardly say that the movie was based on the book, though. Bryon's personal growth journey and coming of age, so well illustrated in the novel, was sacrificed to car chases and Hollywood's penchant for tidy endings, in the movie.

While I would recommend both, I would caution that they are two separate stories, sharing the same character names. Perhaps there is the lesson: You cannot watch the movie to get out of reading the book! .