Seven Films (Based on Books) For Destressing From Distress

My favorite movies based on books

I admit I’m an overthinker. So when I need to distract myself from life, I like movies with lots of layers to peel. First of all, the film has got to be entertaining. It doesn’t necessarily have to be true to the book but I want it to stand on its own. I want to think and wonder about the protagonist long after I finish it. Even if you don’t have time to read books these days, watch these movies. It’s nice to know the books are out there, silently standing behind these great films, waiting for you to dive in and see how others dealt with life’s problems.

1. Fight Club

I will shamelessly namedrop here. But even if I didn’t know Chuck Palahniuk from his writing workshop, I’d still recommend his book and the fantastic film directed by David Fincher. Chuck told us he got the idea for his book when he used to work for Freightliner Trucks as a lowly mechanic. He showed up at work with a face bruised from a fistfight … and no one asked him about it. A fantastic tale of how one man deals with alienation in our capitalist consumer society.

2. Joy Luck Club

The women’s version of Fight Club. Actually, Amy Tan wrote her book long before Chuck wrote his. In any case, I enjoyed both her book and the film. Relationships are at the core of Tan’s stories - between immigrants and their American children, between men and women, and especially between mothers and daughters. Here are the lessons we wish our mothers taught us.

3. Adaptation / Orchid Thief

This is what I call a meta film. The movie is about making a film out of a book - The Orchid Thief. I loved the film and non-fiction book for different reasons because they’re completely different. For me, the film had an interesting idea about romance that I still use today - see if you can find it. The book taught me about human obsessions - specifically orchids. We all need our obsessions.

4. Story of Your Life / Arrival

Ted Chiang’s story of a linguist’s encounter with a superior alien life form contains profound ideas about time, language and philosophy. Knowing Japanese makes me appreciate Chiang’s story even more. The film Arrival was very different from the novella and added a political twist.

5. The Wizard of Oz

This classic isn’t just a kids’ book or an old-time movie. Every time I see the movie I’m amazed by the imagination and fantastic imagery. And the music is permanently seared into my brain. Aren’t we all like Dorothy, trying to escape depressing Kansas?

6. The Great Gatsby

Another classic to take you to a different time and place - 1920’s Long Island. I liked the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio but some people hated the extravagance and hedonism. But that’s the point. This story of the very rich should make us all uncomfortable -

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and . . . then retreated back into their money . . . and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”

7. Wild

The true story of a young woman trying to find herself - by hiking over 1,000 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail - alone. Cheryl Strayed wrote about her messed up life. Her divorce, the death of her mother, and the grinding poverty that plagued her life. Sometimes the only way to deal with life’s problems is by creating a bigger problem for yourself.