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From the piece...
The Scarlet Letter
The gold standard of all bad adaptations — the reverse Godfather, if you will. Director Roland Joffé, who helmed acclaimed pictures like The Killing Fields and The Mission, would seem a logical choice to film Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 1850 historical novel, a favorite of high school English teachers for decades. And he exhibited spot-on casting instincts when he placed Gary Oldman in the role of minister Arthur Dimmesdale. What we don’t know is who decided that Demi Moore was born to play Hester Prynne, but whoever made that call hopefully didn’t get a Christmas bonus. She was done no favors by Douglas Day Stewart’s screenplay adaptation, which threw out much of the novel’s complexity in favor of sexy bathtub scenes and a happy (or happier?) ending. The critics weren’t enthused (the film was nominated for seven Razzie awards), and audiences stayed far away. It took Hollywood a full 15 years to finally make a modern Scarlet Letter that worked: last year’s Easy A. (No, seriously, we love that movie.)
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