Norweigan Wood Review

The film adaptation of Norweigan Wood is pretty milquetoast. What made Norweigan Wood such a big novel compared to Murakami’s other novels (mainly its focus on the main love triangle between our protagonist Watanabe, the sanatorium-ridden Naoko, and the outgoing Midori, as well as faithfully adapting the culturally trendy environment of the late 60s) is present here. For myself in particular however, while I appreciate the attention paid to the era, I wasn’t the greatest fan of the film. I’m not the greatest fan of the book either. I don’t think it’s Murakami’s worst work, nor a bad work, but it always gave me the feeling in too many places that Murakami (or his editors) wasn’t writing from the heart, as much as to break the bank. That said, there are some great passages enclosed in Norweigan Wood, mainly the beginning, painting Watanabe’s disillusionment with the role of academia and ongoing protests in the late 60s, and the ending, painting Watanabe’s disillusionment with frankly, life, after Midori’s suicide. But while these passages are present in the film, thematically I’m not getting the same impact from the film as I was when the reading the novel. Instead, the film focuses on what made the film popular, dramatizing the hell out of the romance enclosed. It’s just not for me. The soundtrack's pretty good though. - William