Kite Runner Movie vs. Book

Translating a book into a movie can be a very elusive task for many reasons. This is due to the fact that a book has many key points in it and compressing them all into a certain time frame can be very arduous. Mark Forster’s adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s novel the Kite Runner is a rather weak portrayal of what the author had originally wrote because of its bad casting choices, very significant and harmful cuts to the novel and scenes added throughout the film. Although the director’s intention to recreate a very touching story into a movie was a great idea, the author could have given more attention to some crucial and important aspects of the novel.
In the book, the characters had distinguishable traits which may have hinted to certain facts about the characters. The director’s casting choices altered some of these important traits which took away from your true understanding of the characters. In the book, the narrator states that Hassan is a descendant of Mongol heritage, which was an indicator of his status in society. As a Hazara, Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada, young Hassan’s actor in the movie, blended in with the rest of the actors, as he did look like a Mongol. Another obvious flaw in Hassan’s character in the movie was the fact that he did not have a harelip, which represented the fact that he was a Hazara and had no money for it to be replaced. Although the movie makers could have easily added one, I believe they chose not to because they felt it was more important to develop other characters’ traits in the book such as Baba. Baba’s character in the book was represented as a strong, intelligent and intimidating man. His character was greatly represented in this quote, “At parties, when all six-foot-five of him thundered into the room, attention shifted to him like sunflowers turning to the sun,” page 14. Homayoun Ershadi, Baba’s actor, fulfilled most of these qualities but he did not portray the same intimidation as the character in the book. This is an