YA Book to Movie: Love and Gelato
I listened to the audiobook version of Love and Gelato when I saw the movie was coming out and thought it was super cute. How does the movie compare, though? Read on to find out.
Spoilers for both ahead!
Plot
Book: “I made the wrong choice.”
Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is go back home.
But then she is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires her, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.
People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more.
It took me a while to get into the book, but once I did, I was pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed following Lina as she discovers her mother's past. The setting is vibrant, as was the food. I wanted to go to Italy and eat everything by the time the book was done. It was nicely paced and moved me a lot in a few spots.
Movie: Lina, a high school graduate, would rather spend her summer preparing for college than flying to Rome to fulfil her mother's last wish. Once she decides to go, she finds herself immersed in new experiences.
The movie was in a word- predictable. It hit every beat and every reveal was painfully obvious before it came. I just had a hard time enjoying it because I knew exactly what was going to happen. (You might think "well, duh, you read the book" but wait until the comparison section.)
Characters
Lina
Book: At first, I didn't like her. She was whiny about everything and rude to Howard, who was nothing but sweet to her. But she grew over the course of the book. I enjoyed watching her mature slightly and understand herself better. And honestly, maybe I'd be whiny too in her situation, I don't know.
Movie: From the moment she stepped on screen, I could tell this Lina was a "I'm a clumsy nerd who is secretly beautiful when I take my glasses off" type. And that's what she was, the whole movie. In the book, I grew to like her, but in the movie, she remained bland and almost unlikable to me the whole time. She was also aged up about a year, from a high school senior to a graduate.
Ren
Book: Ren was a sweet boy who selflessly helps Lina follow her mother's journey. He's there for her when her real dad rejects her and introduces her to gelato. I liked him.
Movie: In the movie, he went by his full name, Lorenzo, and was a chef. (Which I don't remember him being in the book.) Honestly, he was a lot better than Lina. He was still pretty sweet and cute. But he still fell into a lot of stereotypes.
Book to Movie Accuracy
*rubs hands* Oh, boy. Once I finished the book, I watched the trailer for the movie and immediately knew they were going to throw out the entire plot. I was right.
The book was about Lina learning more about her mom, and thus, herself. The movie was about "Oh no, which gorgeous boy who is totally in love with me do I pick?". The answer is obviously the cute, down-to-earth one rather than the rich, thinks-he's-all-that one.
Because Lina is older, she no longer is considering going to high school in Italy, so we lose all the characters from that plot line. Instead of Thomas from the book, we get Alessandro. Ren's original girlfriend is replaced by some biker chick that didn't fit the story at all.
Like I said, the movie hit every beat predictably as a song you've heard too many times. Both book and movie had a love triangle, but the movie made it the main plot. It was also far too long, at like 2 hours.
Although I will mention the movie did make me laugh a few times and I appreciated the amount of Italian spoken by the characters. Some scenes were almost entirely in Italian, which was cool. I'm pretty sure most of the actors are Italian too, because I didn't know any of them.
So, how do they compare? I'm going to give it a 3 out of 10, most because of how cliché it was.
Have you read or seen Love and Gelato? Should more languages be spoken in films? Tell me in the comments.
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This is such a good review! I love the book and I watched the movie but the movie was a huge disappointment. Still, I loved seeing book Lina’s character growth and Ren is the sweetest!
ReplyDeleteI was so sad they wrecked it, because it was such a cute book!
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