Movie Critic: To Kill a Mockingbird
To Kill a Mocking Bird is a novel that received raving reviews from critics like Chicago Tribune, Time Magazine and Life Magazine. With this being her only novel, author Harper Lee created the story in effort to tell a story of siblings Scout and Jem Finch and how an experience that changes their view on the town have they live in. Scout Finch, a young 5 year old girl is the protagonist and narrator in the story. Jem Finch, her 9 year old brother looks after her and is her constant playmate throughout the novel. Atticus is the father of the two, a lawyer in Maycomb, and acts as the “moral backbone” of the novel.
When the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird became an immediate success, a picture film comes out in 1962 based off of that novel. Since the film received eight Academy Awards, it is automatically assumed that the film did a great job portraying the novel in live action. However, there were some differences as well as similarities when comparing the two. The largest similarity in the book was the main plot. Tom Robinson was convicted of raping Mayella Ewell and Atticus had to defend him, being willing to do so. Atticus feelings toward the matter did not change also; he still stood up for equality for all races, which caused him to be look down upon in Maycomb County during the trial. Another similarity of the novel is the ages and occupations of most of the characters. There were quite a few differences, however, that if you had read the novel, would have been very obvious in the movie. The biggest one has to be when Ms. Maudie house burns down in the novel. That did not show in the movie. Another difference would be that Aunt Alexandra, Jem and Scout’s Aunt, did not appear in the film also. The plot in the movie mainly focused on the main situation (Atticus’s case) rather than sub plots in the novel, considering that most