Hot Blooded

Missed you all dearly, blah, blah. I just finished Warm Bodies a couple of days ago and was glad I had watched the Warm Bodies movie before I read the book. I don’t think it’s giving anything away to say that R is a zombie who meets a girl, falls in love, and changes back to human. It was a surprisingly sweet romantic comedy, much sweeter than one would think a movie about a zombie and girl could be. I loved the movie and immediately put the book on my to-read list.

I usually hate the movie adaptations of books I like, with Maeve Binchey’s Circle of Friends being the low point and maybe Colin Firth’s version of Pride & Prejudice being the best possible outcome. Warm Bodies lost the depth of the book, of course, with so much of the action occurring as an internal dialogue, but the movie felt true to the spirit of the book.

I’m finding myself thinking more about the significance of the Boneys, elder zombies identified as monsters without thought in the movie but as leadership figures in the book. The Boneys serve almost as priests or tribal elders, performing rituals and maintaining order in the gathering of zombies. I can’t decide if they were simplified for the movie because it would require an amount of communication that isn’t possible, since R speaks only in voice-over for most of the movie, or if it just made more sense to have the R be the only zombie with both instinct and choice.

Anyway, read it & watch it. Both versions are well worth the time.