Book vs. Movie: Howl's Moving Castle

Beware! This post contains many spoilers for both the book and the movie. If you don't want to read spoilers, please check out my book review of Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones.

The first half of the book and movie are actually very similar. Sophie is cursed by the Witch of the Wastes, she becomes and old woman, and she falls in with Howl, Calcifer and Michael in the moving castle. After that, the plots really diverge. In the movie, Howls ends up serving the King of Ingary by fighting in war, which turns Howl into a monstrous creature. In the book, the plot focuses much more on Howl's attempts to evade the curse placed upon him by the Witch of the Wastes and Sophie's mission to cure her own curse.

While I liked the movie, I found it confusing. Sometimes Sophie's an old woman, sometimes she seems to be getting better, then she's an old woman again. Howl is a bad guy. Howl is a good guy. Howl is turning into a bizarre monster. WHAT? While some of these same events happen in the book, the story flows a lot more smoothly by virtue of the narrator's comments giving you hints about what's going on.

I liked the character of Howl a lot better in the book. The choppiness of the storytelling in the movie made it tough to see the good sides of his character, and then Sophie started falling in love with him and I couldn't figure out why. Then you have to factor in that even though he was voiced by the incredible Christian Bale, he still looked like a girl! However, Calcifer and the Scarecrow were better in the movie. I guess they're the type of characters who really need visual aids. Also, several characters who are in the book were eliminated or severely cut back for the movie. I know that almost every book ends up with those kinds of cuts for the movie version, but in this case, the story is significantly richer with the extra characters.

It's hard to beat a Miyazaki movie for visual appeal. I loved how the castle looked and acted in the movie, and the characters' appearance and animation has a beautiful style to it. Even Howl's green-slime temper tantrum (one of the story's funniest moments) is disgustingly fantastic.

In the final reckoning: I like the book better, but the movie is well worth watching too. The story is more cohesive and the ending makes more sense in the book. But if you like darker and more complicated, the movie might just be your cup of tea. The Howl-as-sinister-beast scenario is definitely an interesting one.