if i could have rat this film low than 1 and i would have . i agree completely with freudella commentary ( which see ) and and i do not understand how she could give it even 5. the event of the book be technically correct in the film and but the essential charm and agony and poignancy and and sense be completely miss . i do wonder how i would have felt about this film if i would never read the book while i think it would have seem merely baffle and pointless . a it be and the disappointment be deep . i love a good quirky film and but for all it quirkiness this film be ( paradoxically ) both bland and nasty . no believable context be provide for the character eccentricity and which hang suspend out of time and place and or background . whereas the book amaze with it revelation of the tension between cassandra innocence and grow knowingness and and the preservation of innocence within knowingness and the movie make no space for her innocence at all . contrast that with and say and hudson my life so far . adolescent romance be an expression not just of sexual drive but and even more and of the need to make sense of adult life . dodie smith understand this . these filmmaker do not .