“I think the movie’s ending is way darker than my book,” said Tremblay. Left alone to decide humanity’s fate, they reject the choice itself, defying any god that would put them through hell, enduring hate and homophobia to find their way to happiness, only to take their daughter and still demand more. Tremblay’s book travels a more complex path: Wen is accidentally killed when Andrew and Leonard struggle over a gun, leaving her dads to make their decision in the throes of unimaginable grief. Andrew is later shown with a grown Wen, their family having averted disaster in the nick of time. In the movie, it’s for her future that her fathers make the ultimate sacrifice as Eric - who becomes increasingly open to the possibility that the strangers’ visions are true - makes peace with the gamble and convinces Andrew to kill him. While the novel never says if Leonard, Adriane, Sabrina and Redmond’s visions are real - or if the news reports they point to as evidence of the apocalypse are concrete proof, rather than coincidence - the movie makes it explicit, vindicating the strangers’ actions.Īrguably the biggest difference is the fate of the young girl, Wen. Some changes from book to film are relatively minor, such as the order and manner in which some of the home invaders perish, compelled by an unseen power to die in ritualistic violence mostly kept offscreen (a stark contrast to the gory details that lend the book more intense brutality and dread).Ī more significant change involves information that both the characters and audience are given. “There were times where I was tearing up at random things just because, wow, it was right out of the book - and other times I felt like I wanted to run out of the theater,” Tremblay said with a laugh on Sunday, chatting from his home outside Boston. They’re changes the author himself admits he’s still processing, days after watching the film for the first time at its New York City premiere. The film diverges from the novel’s conclusion and, perhaps, what meaning viewers will take from the story. For much of the film, the screenplay, by Shyamalan, Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman, hews faithfully to the tense beats and details of Tremblay’s novel.
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