The film vs. the book

This page is devoted to the comparison between the 1995 film version of The Scarlet Letter, and the novel. The film is a "free adaptation" of the novel, and numerous liberties were taken with the story line. From a technical standpoint, the film is awful. There is little substance to the script, and it suffers from bad acting (*cough* Demi Moore *cough*). The direction is fine, but sometimes the cuts are a little confusing and leave the audience trying to figure out what is going. From the get-go, the film shares very little with the novel. Only basic storyline and the main characters remain the same. There are so many changes between the source material and the movie, that a full description of these changes would take longer to read than to just watch the movie. Here are the changes that most disturbed me:

>The film's first hour is exposition and introduces many new characters who aren't present in the novel. An example of this is Hester's slave girl, Mituba. The film picks up when Hester arrives in New England before her husband, while the novel picks up Hester exiting jail after her 3-month stint there.

>In the novel, Hester's affair is revealed when she is pregnant. In the movie, she admits her sin when Goody Gotwick tells the Puritian church leaders he thinks Hester is suffering from "morning sickness"

>Hester's sense of isolationism in the novel is almost nonexistent in the film.

>In the novel, Hester's scarlet "A" is decorative and beautiful so it is easily distinguishable. In the movie, it is just plain and red.

>Pearl is the narrator of the film, and is portrayed as more of an sweet and innocent child than as the unsettling being she is in the novel.

>In the film, Chillingworth dresses up as a Native American and scalps someone who thinks is Dimmsdale. After realizing its not Dimmsdale, he hangs himself. This is well before the film is over. In the novel, Dimmsdale does no scalping, and dies a year after Dimmsdale's death.

>Dimmsdale admits he is Pearl's father and as he is about to be put to death, Indians attack the town. The natives save Hester and Dimmsdale, and they take Pearl and leave. So, Dimmsdale survives in the film and doesn't survive novel. Also, the novel never mentions an Indian attack and a fight between Puritans and Indians.

>Both Hester's and Dimmsdale's sense of guilt that is present in the novel is gone or reduced in the film. Hester seems happy with her life with Mituba and Pearl. She doesn't do any of the community service that she does in the novel. Dimmsdale's survival in the film doesn't allow to make up for his sins like he does in the novel.

In the film's credit, it kept two things from the novel that is extremely important: the color red and sin. The color is often  highlighted in the film and many important things are bathed in red light, or characters wear red clothes. Sin still has a major part, and the judgement of sin is still incorporated in the film.

Professional Reviews:
Roger Ebert 
Rotten Tomatoes 
Todd McCarthy 

The Trailer for the film: