Howl's Moving Castle

Sometimes, you go watch a movie that happens to be an adaption of a book you've read and you find yourself watching something completely alien to what you were expecting to see.  The character names are the same, but the character's names appear in the film even if they don't match the characters they were meant to identify.  The plot... is alien from what you expected.  Several male characters are now female. Some characters don't even appear at all!  What's going on?

I like to call this Same Title, Different Movie.  Howl's Moving Castle by Hayao Miyazaki is like that. Based on a novel by Diana Wynne Jones, the book and the movie have little to nothing in common.  There is a main character named Sophie who turned into an old crone by the Witch of the Waste and goes to work for a wizard named Howl who is famed for eating the hearts of young women.  That is the basic part of both stories that are exactly the same.  The rest completely diverges until you no longer can tell that one comes from the other.

You should also know that Diana Wynne Jones enjoyed this movie until her death in March 2011 despite its differences from her book.  She probably adheres to the Neil Gaimen philosophy of book adaptions of movies that "nobody wants the book and movie to be exactly the same".  This is true in my case.  I don't want the movie to be exactly the same as the book, otherwise I'd just go read the book and ignore the movies altogether or I'd never have a reason to pick up the book again.  Instead, I want a movie to perfectly encapsulate the spirit of the book. The feel of the book, the language of the book, the way the book is supposed to make you feel and think.

This movie almost succeeds.  There's a lot from the book that you can see in the movie, including the characterization of the two leads: Howl and Sophie.  However, Howl's character changes the most between mediums while Sophie's character's connections to others changes too.

I love the movie. I really do.  I happen to own it and I dust it off every once in a while and get caught up in the whimsy.  There are parts done really well.  They hilarious part is that the well-done parts are not the things Hayao Miyazaki is known for.  There's an anti-war plot tossed into the movie for no fucking reason and I just look at it and scratch my head.  The whole ending of the movie is an utter mess because of the way the movie was story-boarded really didn't make sense. It makes you wonder if it was story-boarded at all.

On the other hand, the book is good, but there are parts that I skimmed through and it must've been a lot of the book because I just don't remember much from the book at all. I remember bits and pieces, but it's mostly "Yeah... that happened..."  Miyazaki's work is memorable even if it makes little to no sense.  Jones' work had magic that worked in a very different way.  Miyazaki's work had magic that was very... emotional.  Jones' magic is both complex and beautiful with demons that can take control over people and people who can talk things to life.  The worlds have different feels to them and you can even see that with the central romantic plot.

In Miyazaki's work, Howl and Sophie are two halves of the same coin.  They both avoid people in their own way because the world sucks and wouldn't like them anyhow.  Sophie does so by acting like an old woman and always being responsible.  Howl does it by acting like a manchild ALL the time. Once they're together, they find the middle ground and are able to move forward and save the nation from war.

In Jones' work, Howl is a bit more... complex.  He's wise in that he's the first person to recognize Sophie's magic. He's vain with a two-hour bathroom regimen.  He does hide his magical talent because he doesn't want the responsibility for being one of the most powerful wizards in the country. However, the reason he has a contract with the demon in the first place is because he felt sorry for the creature and didn't want it to die, so he saved it, dooming himself to losing his own humanity.  He's more than a guy who wants to be a manchild, he's an actual person who thinks and feels about things. On the other hand, Sophie pretty much seems to be the same in the book as she is in the movie.

Personally, either way, I like both characters and I like the romance and interplay between them. It's what makes both book and movie work for me.  However, you should read and watch both to find out for yourself how you feel.  Just keep in mind that the Miyazaki movie is somewhat all over the place.

Sweet Dreams!