Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day Lewis in “The Age of Innocence”

Whether reading a book or watching a film, one inevitably projects herself on the characters. Two of my favorite movie adaptations of novels, Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence and Agnieszka Holland’s Washington Square are much more sympathetic to their protagonists than were Edith Wharton and Henry James.

I write about The Age of Innocence, novel and adaptation, for the Library of America’s biweekly feature, The Moviegoer.

Are there adaptations with very different interpretations of the characters than you experienced when you read the book(s)? Does it deepen your appreciation of the novels?