Le vieillard et l'enfant

This adaptation of Gabrielle Roy's short story is not faithful to the

story in many ways. Christine is haunted by her grandmother's

death and death in general; Monsieur Saint-Hilaire looks like he's

going to die anytime within the next three minutes; we have

intimate glimpses of Christine's mother crying over her past...

Although I generally don't have a problem with alternations to fit a

movie, I felt that it ruined the result in this case. It changed

Christine and Monsieur Hilaire's personalities, and gave the

mother more presence than required. The original story is light and fresh, but the adaptation is heavy and

gloomy, so the main ingredient of the story is lost.