Midnight's Children

I was fortunate enough to get tickets to watch an early screening of 'Midnight's Children' at the BFI London Film Festival. In the wake of several adaptations (Cloud Atlas, Silver linings playbook, Life of Pi) I wasn't really expecting much out of Midnoght's Children in particular.

When I first saw the trailer I wasn't thoroughly impressed. The acclaimed novel by Salman Rushdie is my favorite book of all time (Booker of Booker prize) and I had a hard time believing a film adaptation would come remotely close to the brilliance of the novel. I didn't want to watch the movie like a father that doesn't want to believe his son is doing drugs.

Thankfully, my son isn't doing drugs, and the movie isn't as bad as I expected. The cinematography is pretty good and the acting, which relied on Asian actors, is very good. I would have enjoyed a better soundtrack - sometimes the music felt eerily like b-quality Bollywood. There are also some scenes that could have been edited better - but I'm not in the movie business so what do I know? Big chunks of the novel are left out but I guess that's normal considering there always have to be some trimming here and there when transforming a novel into a film.

Overall great movie that doesn't disappoint fans of the novel. Sure, it could have been better - but hey, in this day and age, what couldn't be better?