Tag Archives: Bad Adaptations

The short story of “Sonny’s Blues” is such a rich, deep, and emotional piece of literature. It fills the few pages it graces with the emotional traumas of two estranged brothers and their struggle through their inner turmoil to become reconnected. It is not a story I could easily picture being adapted into any sort of film. Gregory Scott Williams Jr. attempted to do this, but I feel he missed the mark and deflated the true depth and warmth of the story. In Baldwin’s story, after a lifetime of not communicating, Sonny reveals his inner demons to his brother. It is a scene which I feel is pivotal. Sonny divulges “I’ve been something I didn’t recognize, didn’t know I could be. Didn’t know anybody could be” and continues to tell his brother how far down his life spiraled while on drugs (Baldwin 114). Sonny paces the room, grabbing ahold of the window sill, trying to hold on to his sobriety and explaining to his brother the fragile barrier between the two worlds. He desires to stay sober after hitting rock bottom and tells his brother “it can come again, I just wanted you to know that” in hopes that his brother will help him stay strong in his battle (Baldwin 114). This scene is almost obsolete in Williams’ film version. Sonny rants to his brother about why he did drugs, but the audience does not see this connection between the brothers that I feel is so incredibly important to the entire story as a whole. Sonny’s road to recovery cannot become a real and tangible thing without his brother by his side. The film fails to deliver this emotional scene and therefore, for me, fails to tell the story of “Sonny’s Blues.”

Baldwin, James. “Sonny’s Blues.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Shorter Eleventh Edition. New York, New York. W.W. Norton & Company (2013): 96-118. Print.