This is one of those frequent examples where a film is so drastically different from the book that they are virtually two very separate entities. But what's unusual is, I've enjoyed them both.

Then She Found Me, published in 1990, is written by award winning New England author Elinor Lipman. Helen Hunt, together with Alice Arlen and Victor Levin, wrote the screenplay and turned it into a movie. I can understand why those who have read the book first before seeing the movie are flabbergasted. The only commonality between the book and the film other than the title may just well be the two main characters, the quiet and rational high school Latin teacher April Epner and her birth mother Bernice Graverman, the ostentatious TV talk show host who wants to claim back the daughter she had given up for adoption more than 30 years ago. There are almost no traces of the original story in the movie.

The amusing character contrast in the book is a springboard for some creative channelling for Hunt and her screenwriter team, kudos to Lipman's original conception of the story idea. Despite its digression from the book, the movie still works and entertains. What more, it has preserved the spirit of the book and has brought to the screen the basic issues the book touches on, the major one being the meaning of motherhood, and the inevitable debate over the value of the birth versus the adoptive mother. For my detailed review of the movie, click here.

The She Found Me is my introduction to Elinor Lipman, the acclaimed author of eight books of fiction and short stories. The book is almost script ready, for it is predominantly dialogues, witty, intelligent, and incisive dialogues. Lipman's sensitivity and subtle humor effectively bring out the nuances of her characters and their relationships, at times sarcastic, at times genuine, at times poignant.

36 year-old April Epner is a high school Latin teacher, quiet, rational, academic, and single. Her long-sleeved cotton jersey and drop-waist Indian cotton jumper persona hides a kind and genuine soul. The only parents she has known all her life are her adoptive Jewish parents Trude and Julius Epner, Holocaust survivors, who have lovingly brought her up and given her a Radcliffe education. After they have passed away and as she stands in the crossroads of her life, the last thing April needs is to be found by a brassy and impulsive talk show host Bernice Graverman, who claims to be her birth mother. Conscientious April has to match wit with evasive Bernice, with the help of her school librarian Dwight, who happens to be much more than just a supplier of encyclopedic information. Without giving out spoilers, let me just say the story unfolds with sprightly twists and turns, effectively driven by Lipman's first-rate, cutting and entertaining dialogues.

Those who have seen the movie but have not read the book should move right along to savor the source material. In here you'll find the intended closure to the seemingly unsolvable conflict and ambivalence. I can see this as a good choice for book/movie discussion in reading groups and book clubs.

As I was reading, I thought I saw Jane Austen cameo. What Lipman has created here is something close to what Austen would have written today: a contemporary comedy of manners, a likable heroine reminiscence of Anne Elliot, an anti-Darcy male character, albeit with similar height and social ineptness, and through the characters and their situations, dares to explore some serious social issues that are masked by very funny, sharp and witty lines. The result is a tasty concoction of humor and heart.

And lo and behold, guess whose portrait I see when I open up Elinor Lipman's website ?

Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman is published by Washington Square Press, 1990, 307 pages.

~ ~ ~ Ripples

A look at some current writers' "summer reading" casts even more doubts on arriving at a clear cut definition of "Beach Reads". Dan Zak of Washington Post interviewed a sample of them and surveyed their summer reads. Here's what he found:

• Mary Higgins Clark: Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• Susan Choi: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
• Janet Evanovich: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Thomas Mallon: Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens
• Sue Monk Kidd: The Grimke Sisters From South Carolina: Pioneers for Women's Rights and Abolition by Gerda Lerner.

... and so on and so forth. Click here to read more of Dan Zak's article on summer reading.

And here's Arti's list. I'm currently reading Lisa Scottoline's Lady Killer, which should satisfy a 'traditional' definition of a 'beach read'. Other than that, I'm also re-reading Jane Austen's Persuasion, and still ploughing through two of Robert K. Johnston's books, Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film In Dialogue and Reframing Theology and Film. If a 'beach read' is defined as a fast pace, plot-driven page-turner, these definitely don't qualify.

I've just finished The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, which is one dynamite read, a wild ride any time of the year. It deserves a whole new post. But to categorize it as a 'beach read' would seem to have down-graded its quality and impact.

A few titles I plan on getting hold of this summer:

• Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman. After watching the film, I'm really interested to find out how a writer instills spirituality into the narrative of everyday living.
• Away by Amy Bloom. I've wanted to know more about her through her reading. So far I've only read one thing from her: Introduction to Jane Austen's novel Persuasion.
• The Savior by Eugene Drucker, founding member of the renowned Emerson String Quartet. In this debut novel, he dispels the myth of the saving power of music, using a Holocaust death camp as the backdrop. Should be one poignant read.

What's your summer reading list like? Typical 'beach read' or evidence shattering its existence?

Then she found me 

Regia: Helen Hunt

Cast: Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler,
Ben Shenkman, Lynn Cohen, John Benjamin Hickey, Salman Rushdie

Distribuzione: Medusa, USA 2007

Guarda il trailer

Tratto dal romanzo di Elinor Lipman "Then she found me", la pellicola racconta la storia di April Epner  (Helen Hunt), maestra trentanovenne, che viene lasciata dal marito immaturo (Matthew Broderick), stressato dalla sua ansia di avere un figlio a tutti i costi. Inoltre la madre adottiva muore e improvvisamente viene contattata dalla madre naturale Bernice (Bette Midler) famosa conduttrice televisiva. La vita della donna sembra trovare un po' di serenità grazie all'incontro con Frank (Colin Firth), padre di uno dei suoi piccoli allievi...Ma un'altra grande novità scombinerà di nuovo tutto...

Esordio alla regia e ritorno sulle scene per Helen Hunt, che sceglie una storia delicata ma complessa, anche se spesso poco verosimile. April è una donna comune, una maestra, che si ritrova immersa all'improvviso in una serie di situazioni poco piacevoli. A complicare il tutto interviene Bernice, interpretata da un'ottima Bette Midler, donna ricca e famosa che vuole iniziare un rapporto con questa figlia abbandonata anni addietro.

L'ancora alla quale April si aggrappa si chiama Frank, un inglese un po' imbranato, da poco piantato dalla moglie e alle prese con due bambini (giustissima la scelta di Colin Firth, sempre perfetto nei ruoli da "innamorato").

Nonostante queste premesse, tuttavia, il film non decolla: in alcune parti è troppo prevedibile, in altre un po' banale.

Da notare il medico interpretato da Salman Rushdie, scrittore discusso e controverso, autore de "I versi satanici".

In definitiva una pellicola garbata e godibile, un buon esordio alla regia per la Hunt, anche se da un'attrice della sua levatura e classe ci si aspetta molto di più.

Conclusione: Da vedere per il cast di altissimo livello.

Voto: 6

So fast foward....the movie is due out April 25th.  I was a bit mystified after finishing the book, as to who actually Colin would be playing...the gorgeous brother or the geeky librarian??  Not a good fit for either...we want our Colin as the romantic lead, do we not??  But being a librarian, I was all for him playing the geeky fellow who turns out to be a prince behind those glasses and shuushhing sounds!...

But alas! as Hollywood does so well, there is nothing of the book to be found in the movie....!  I have just watched the trailer and this is the basic plot synopsis:  April, whose adoptive mother is still alive, inexplicably decides to get married to a do-nothing, self-absorbed fellow (Matthew Broderick); her real mother (Bette Midler) shows up wanting to have a relationship and tells her that her father was Steve McQueen; April's husband decides to leave her because he is bored; she meets the father (Frank, played by Colin) of one of her students, who expresses interest in getting to know her; she asks him out on a date, they click; her husband wants her back, she sleeps with him, she gets pregnant, and we do not know who the father is, but therein lies the story's hook.....will she end up with Colin or Matthew? and all through this her new found mother brings great trouble as well as comfort into her life....I get all this from the trailer...it is called a dramady.  Colin is supposed to throw wild fits and therefore appear to be an unstable lover and thus perhaps not the best father of her child, etc, etc... So I ask you, if you read my first paragraph, is there anything in this movie that sounds like the book??? yikes!  Steve McQueen???  (but please note that there is this interesting bit of literary trivia in the movie:  Salman Rushdie plays the gynecologist!)

So I leave further discussion for after actually seeing the movie, for who in their right mind would miss Colin Firth in any sort of movie??, though I really was looking forward to seeing him as the geeky librarian....!  We Janeites can certainly see how easy it is for movies to NOT BE ANYTHING LIKE THE BOOK, and still get made! (not to bring Austen adaptations into the discussion, but there you have it!)  Comments welcome from anyone who has seen the movie and / or read the book, though I would love to know what Ms. Lipman thinks of all this!

The Screening Room

The other intriguing thing about the film is how well it handles the emotions and experiences of infertility and adoption which are as large a presence in the film as April's Jewishness. My wife and I went through infertility and are frustrated when so often popular entertainment gets the whole thing wrong--either by focusing on septuplets as the obvious result of fertility treatments or by making adoption seem like an easy way out. (I'm pointing the finger at you Friends- we know you knew better Courtney Cox Arquette!) The reality is of course, far more complex and Then She Found Me deals with both topics--adoption and infertility--with extraordinary veracity to the conflicted emotions and hard decisions involved in both.

It is a free screening, but a reservation is required and the slots are going fast. Click here to get yours. It opens in theaters May 2nd in DC. The trailer from the film is below:

Elinor Lipman wrote this great op-ed piece in the Boston Globe called "If I Ruled the Admissions Universe" and she spells it out beautifully.

Go read it now.  You'll feel better.  I promise.