The Cement Garden

Having read McEwan's haunting and beautiful novel some years ago, I anticipated the film and recently found it in my university library. Sad to say I was hugely dissapointed.

Birkin has taken away the novels macabre humour and charcterisations and replaced them with sign posts which direct us to the reasons why they have their affair (parental loss, burgeoning sexuality) rather than letting the feelings and jealousy fester as they did in the novel. Also he has altered Julie's older lover Derek to the point where the funniest scene in the book (Derek taking the bemused Jack to a pool hall) has been completely erased and the charcter is now foreign and middle class as opposed to working class and English.

Having said that it contains the most hilarious line of dialogue I have ever heard:

Jack (to Tom) when you look at William, do you get a funny feeling in your dinky?