What We Talk About When We Talk About Love - Movie Review Example

Film Adaptation Analysis of ‘Why Don’t You Dance’ Introduction: ‘Why don’t you dance?’ is an excellent masterpiece written by Raymond Carver. The main theme of the story revolves around love, bonding and relationships. Raymond Carver has skillfully highlighted the most delicate subject of relationship in his short story, why don’t you dance which was first published in 1977. Carver is known for his minimalistic writing which can be read anywhere, anytime without tying the reader with the story for so long.

The main theme of this story highlights the delicacy of relationships. Like in majority of Carver’s stories, the characters are simple and create a spell-bounding effect on the minds of the reader. In this short story, Carver has never named his characters. The characters remain as, ‘the man’, ‘the girl’, and ‘the boy’. The story revolves around a man who has emptied his entire house in his front lawn after getting out of a broken relationship. It seems like he is trying to get out of the memories of his past and taking a new fresh start for a new life.

He arranges everything outside of his house with a thought that, ‘no different from how it was when they were inside.’ His action attracted the people to slow down their cars and stare at the lawn for a minute but it finally got the interest of a young couple who thought this as a ‘backyard sale’. Later, the young couple ends up in getting drunk with the man dancing merrily around his yard. Carver has never highlighted or discussed any of his characters getting drunk or getting high in his previous stories.

However, this effort adds uniqueness in the story that the young characters got drunk and what made them to stop by his lawn, when everyone else was least interested? After the young couple buys most of his furniture for their new home, the girls stops and asks the man regarding his life and the furniture sale. ‘She kept talking. She told everyone. There was more to it, and she was trying to get it talked out. After a time, she quit trying.’ However, he end raises many questions in the minds of the readers that whether the girl would ever leave the guy and their relationship would end the same way?

Is the furniture they are buying would have any of its impact on their marital life? These were some of the questions that remained unanswered till the very end. Film Analysis: Carver’s story was adapted in the movie Everything Must Go which revolves around the man who lost his job and his wife due to his extreme alcoholism. He moves everything of his house from inside to outside in order to sell and get some more money to purchase his liquor. The film adaptation of the story appeared more modern.

In the movie, the main subject highlighted was the alcoholism of the man whereas in the story, the subject was different then what it was showed. The screenplay of the movie is different than the original story and however, it has failed to do the justice with the story. The screenplay written by Dan Rush has done no justice with the story. In the movie, the director of the movie, Dan Rush has excluded the most important part of the movie, in which the young girl dances with the man around in his lawn.

This was one of the most important parts described in the story by Caver. Their dance was intimate and bizarre. This entire part in story highlights that fading spark between the young couple which marked the end of another relationship even before they tied the knot. The cast of the movie is comparatively good with Will Ferell in the leading role and Rebecca Hill playing the role of the young lady along with Michael Pena in the character of the young guy. The movie was released in 2011. However, the movie has failed to inspire the audiences as compare to the story.

The movie lacks the depth of emotions that one cannot feel in the movie due to lack of skilful direction. But one can sure understand the intensity of emotions from the words of Carver. Work cited: Carver, R. Why Don’t You Dance? What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (1977) Rush, D. Everything Must Go. (2011) United States