Tuesday With Morrie Movie vs Book

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom

Tuesdays with Morrie with Hank Azaria and Jack Lemmon

Both the book and the movie are about a journalist that reconnects with one of his former college professors when he hears that his professor is dying.

Morrie, the professor, shares the insights that he has learned as the disease that will eventually take his life ravishes his body.  And these conversations have a profound impact on his former student, Mitch.

The book and the movie follow very similar lines and there are times when the wording is exactly the same.  But there were differences.  In the book (and I’m assuming, real life) Mitch is married, but for some reason in the movie he isn’t.  In the movie he has a girlfriend and the relationship between them takes up much more of the movie than it does of the book.  In fact there is a lot more in the movie that involves Mitch when he isn’t with Morrie.  Almost the entire book takes place in Morrie’s home, you don’t get to see much of Mitch’s life at all.  I don’t know if they just added things from life to make it more complete or added made up things to make it more dramatic, but you get to see more of his work and home life.

I wasn’t that big of a fan of the book because I thought, despite the very personal nature of the story, that it was reduced to a bunch of pithy sayings.  Which, I admit, mean more coming from someone who has to actually live them, but at times it started to feel like a bunch of clichés strung together and it became trite.  Which is sad because I’m sure Morrie’s life was anything but trite.  And I don’t know how you can tell such a personal, emotional tale and still leave me feeling like I don’t know the people involved.  But that was how the book made me feel.  So it was nice that the movie added more of the people’s lives.  I found it easier to connect to the people because I felt I knew them better.  So I think the movie edges the book out a little for me.  But the movie still has some of the slightly preachy, slightly condescending feel the book had so I wasn’t the biggest fan of the movie either.