Incendiary by Chris Cleave which was also a movie Starring Michelle Williams, Ewan McGregor, Matthew Macfadyen.
On a Chris Cleave high after finishing Little Bee, I embarked on the story of Incendiary. I opted for the movie first and then picked up the book. Cleave's character development remarkable. In Little Bee's first 100 pages I had to keep verifying the story was fiction. The voice of the main character was so poetic and focused, it felt like a story being told from a heart full of pain and hope. The overview of Incendiary kept me from diving into the book. I wasn't sure I was ready for a full on terrorist attack. The movie had been sitting in my Netflix queue before I even heard of Chris Cleave, so I thought it was a safe bet if at some random time I deemed it worthy of a queue placement.The focus is a working class young mother coping with her grief by writing a letter to Osama Bin Laden after losing her husband and son in a terrorist attack in London.
How different could the movie and book be?
The plots were quite different. The premise was the same. Michelle Williams plays the hauntingly ordinary woman with power and ease. The woman is also never named adding to her ordinariness. Cleave delivered another moving character voice with speech and phrase which again added a big dose of reality to the story. The voice in book is present in Michelle Williams performance, even though the events unfold in a very different manner.
As for the rest of the cast, Ewan McGregor who plays Jasper Black and Matthew MacFadyen who plays Terrance Butcher were underutilized. If the relationships defined the book would have made it into the movie, it would have been a dramatic Olympics. In the movie both their characters were just kinda there and not of any help to the events unfolding. They weren't of any help because nothing really unfolded in the movie whereas the male characters in the book were present and had an impact on the woman's coping process.
The movie opted to have the woman fixate on a boy who was the son of one of the terrorists. It anchors the movie on the woman's grief. She grapples with her anger and the vulnerability of the boy who lost his father in the bombing. Haunted by her son and crippling grief she becomes disconnected from reality. As the movie reveals more answers to the bombing, she is so isolated it doesn't have an impact and doesn't seem fully explained. The hopeful ending seems a little pasted on and awkward.
The book confronts many more angles to the woman's grief and position by becoming entangled with Jasper and his girlfriend Petra, both reporters. The relationships and people she interacts with are much more developed. Jasper struggles more with the attack, and the connection he and the woman share sustains beyond just feeling bad for her. Petra, who was not in the movie, drives home the class distinctions and makes a beautiful symbol of the selfish and apathetic. The relationship between Terrance and the woman is much sweeter and painful. The woman's connection to the bombing revelations have much more connection to her actions in the end. The ending is anything but hopeful, but very poetic.
I know, I know. The book is always better. I expected it because of how much I like Chris Cleave' writing. What I didn't expect was such a departure from the book that resulted in two really talented actors giving such bland performances. The movie is worth watching if you want to see Michelle Williams do some amazing work or just watch Ewan McGregor be cute and Scottish. For a good story with rich characters and real struggles, check out the book.
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