As is my way, I saw The Company You Keep at a preview screening, then I read the novel, then I saw the film a second time before writing this review. (I try to do this every time I want to write a serious review of a literary adaptation.)
Conventional Wisdom says "the movie is never as good as the book," but this is one case where CW is simply wrong. Neil Gordon's novel is OK (too many characters, too many coincidences, too much melodrama), but Robert Redford's film is very powerful. Working closely with screenwriter Lem Dobbs, Redford has extracted the best elements of Gordon's novel, and added some essential connective tissue. In Redford's hands, a story about the past becomes a catalyst for the future.
All of which is fine with me, except for one thing: where are the Jews?
Ironically, all of the names novelist Neil Gordon gave to his huge cast of characters (Jed Lewis, Mimi Lurie, Henry Osborne, Sharon Solarz, etc) have all stayed the same except for three: reporter Ben Shepard (known in the novel as Ben Schulberg), and the Sloan Brothers (known in the film as Nick Sloan and Daniel Sloan, but known in the novel as Jason Sinai and Daniel Sinai). So on the page, both of the protagonists-Ben Schulberg and Jim Grant/Jason Sinai-are clearly Jewish, but you would never know that if you had only met their onscreen counterparts.
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