Message in a Bottle the novel uses a framing device to start the story. It's told in third person, beginning with Theresa thinking back on the events that are going to happen in the story. I don't really think this device is necessary, and it feels a bit like a crutch to make events in the story be shrouded in mystery.
The thing with Sparks is that he isn't a terribly great writer. His prose feels more perfunctory than poetic, rote instead of riveting. He often explains exactly what a character is doing. Theresa set the table. Theresa got salad dressing from the refrigerator. He also constantly describes what a character is wearing, as if that's a key to their personality (not to say costuming isn't important, but probably more so in a visual medium...like film). He actually wrote "For some reason Garret couldn't sleep well that night." as the last sentence of a chapter. For some reason, as if Sparks isn't the creator of everything going on in Garret's head.
If I had read the book first, I likely would have been completely surprised at the casting of Kevin Costner for Garret. At the most basic level, he's too old to play Garret; Costner was 44 and in the book Garret is no more than 32. He's a young guy who got married young to the love of his life and lost her too soon. That is not Costner at all. However, since the film really only takes the bare bones story of Message in a Bottle, Costner's version works for the story told in the film. Mostly. He does seem a bit old to have a "young" wife just getting pregnant. But the rest of film-Garret works better than novel-Garret.
In the novel, Garret is supposed to be clinging to his dead wife. So much that he can't progress in his relationship with Theresa. I don't ever really feel this. In the movie, we get great visuals of Catherine's things still being the house. In the novel, we're just told that Garret isn't over her. We also get a series of dreams, which made me roll my eyes because nowhere else other than novels and movies do characters have such exact, personal dreams.
Truth be told, the tension in the novel is mostly how they each have lives and careers in different states. Neither can just up and move to the other's city without changing their whole world. In the book that feels like the real issue keeping Garret and Theresa apart, whereas in the movie it's definitely that Garret hasn't let go of Catherine.
Sparks is also deeply into gender roles and a little bit sexist. He can't describe Theresa without mentioning her slim figure or the way her clothes "highlight her figure". She's basically described as a spinster divorcee who has given up on dating post-divorce because all the men are crap. Theresa also claims her son, Kevin, has no father figure even though he HAS a dad that he sees, a dad who takes him on trips and such. I don't know, that just bothered me.
The novel's relationship is a bit longer and a bit more invested in by both parties. Theresa visits Garret several times, he comes up to Boston to see her several times. They talk about marriage. In the movie, the timeline is compacted - the trip where Theresa first meets Garret, then he visits her once in Boston, and then misunderstanding. But since the actors play the roles with deep emotion and chemistry, I completely believe that they yearn for one another and are meant to be, even with the short timeframe.
There are several other minor changes, like Theresa's boss being a male in the movie adaptation, and Garret's dad having a noticeably bigger role (I mean, it's Paul Newman so of course). Theresa's son's age is a little bit younger, Garret restores and fixes boats but in the novel he owns a diving shop. None of these make any sort of difference, but for the story that is told in the movie they work.
For Message in a Bottle, the story of Theresa and Garret feels more true when the actors bring it to life, elevating Sparks' mediocre dialogue to genuine emotion. In this case, I'd probably skip the book because it doesn't bring anything extra to the movie.
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