OK, I can't stand George Clooney's politics, but I enjoy his work. I've held off seeing this film for some time because of that and I wanted to read the book, I had to get into the mood. The book is a fantastic story of post war Berlin 1945 political intrigue, tension, and human nature and wartime survival amid the ruins of Nazi Germany. The book is always better than the movie, the dialogue in the book was proper in that it read the way it should have been, by that I mean that in the book, they are speaking German but the book is in English, its not translated into American English. Great book. The movie. Well, its good on its own because its filmed in B&W in the "film noir" style so popular right after WWII, but, its terrible what they did to a good book for the sake of making a movie. Read the book, then watch the movie, pay attention to the various film techniques not seen anymore. I hope this style catches on again, doubtful due to B&W not being popular with the younglings.

I'll have to check the book. Sounds interesting and maybe the movie too.

Back when I was a full-time writer and paid the bills that way, I did some teleplays and a few screenplays. One of the things you learn is that some books simply cannot be duplicated on the big or small screen. The mediums have different requirements and methods of engaging the reader/watcher.

Books are all about phrasing, the play on words, dialog and the author has the ability to show you what each character is thinking. You can also have a far bigger scope and span of history and many more characters. You have hundreds of pages to flesh out your characters.

Movies and TV are visual and everything has to be done within no more than 2 hours (and 90 minutes is preferred). You have a very brief period to identify, create and explain your character's personality and what drives them, plus move the whole story along to its finish. Pretty much everything has to be SHOWN and often you will see a lot of "condensing" of the characters so they're more like cardboard cut-outs than real people. Think any "Arnold" movie . . .

So when you wonder why a movie isn't exactly like the book, you're comparing two very dissimilar things. As long as they don't change the ending, I can live with and enjoy a movie based on a favorite book. I already know the story, so I just want to see it acted out.

I understand book to movie relationships. If they made the movie like the book, all movies would be 10 hours long and quite boring. Without spoiling the movie, please, read the book, then see the movie, and then you'll see what I'm talking about. I can see a few liberties to make the movie flow and some poetic license, but jeez, I bet the author was sick to see it.