The Westing Game

I just finished reading the Westing Game a couple years ago, and one day when I was searching on the IMDb for a completely different topic, this movie turned up. I have not seen it, but by simply looking at the cast list, I know they did something wrong. How did they louse it up? Let me count the ways.

CHARACTERS 1 Got Rid Of Madame Hoo (& Thus The Burglary Plot) 2 Got Rid Of Flora Baumbach (& Thus Turtle's Confidante) 3 Got Rid Of Mister Theodorakis (& Thus Violet Westing Connection) 4 Got Rid Of Theo Theodorakis (& Thus Chris' Caretaker) 5 Got Rid Of Edgar Plum (& Thus Somewhat Humorous Idiotic Lawyer)

SUBPLOTS 1 Burglary 2 Stocks 3 Violet Westing & Mister Theodorakis

MISCELLANEOUS 1 And So On

Why Did They Let This Happen To A Great Children's Book? Shame On Whoever Did This!

Ellen Raskin wrote an amazing novel that was smart, witty and unpredictable. This movie was a horrible disgrace to the book (as many are.) Only few movies can pull of books (notice the word few) and they are few (few again!) and far between. This is not one of them. Be advised... stay away.

The Westing Game was my favorite childhood book, and I saw this movie and bought it, thinking it might be worth it to see it... it wasn't, they cut out key characters, changed things, and even changed the ending. It's awful... don't bother watching it.

I am a teacher who read The Westing Game to his class. Then we watched the movie. I did not feel that the movie did the book justice, but here is what some of my students thought:

The movie was different from the book. Why did you leave out that Turtle won $200 million? Brittany.

I liked the movie, because some of the details in the movie were different, like when Turtle was under the judge's desk and Crow helped her. The book was better, but I wouldn't mind watching the movie again. Shanice

I think the book was better, but the movie was good too. I liked the movie, because it wasn't soooo confusing, and there wasn't much violence. Marisa

I liked the movie, because you can understand it. I liked it because Turtle was such a smart girl, and she helped solve the problems. I liked the boy in the wheelchair (Chris), because he helped solve problems too. I think that Turtle is a funny name. Sandra

I loved the movie, because they have good details and a great plot. Josh

I liked the movie, because most of the information matched the book. Stephen

I think that the book and the movie were both really good. Some parts were in the book and weren't in the movie, like the dressmaker (Flora Baumbach) wasn't Turtle's partner, and she wasn't even in the movie. The movie was more interesting than the book. Sibel

The movie was da bomb--just joking. It was good and so was the book. Turtle was the best part in the movie and the smartest one except for Sandy the doorman. Dakota

I liked the book, but I didn't like the movie as much. I hope they make another movie that is better than this one. I liked the movie because they left out some of the details that I thought were boring in the book. Tyler

The Same Movie appears under 2 titles: Get a Clue AND The Westing Game. It is the same cast AND the same movie--just the packaging was different. I ordered the first one (Horrible)so thought the second one might be better. SURPRISE!!! Same movie. I teach the Westing Game, which IS an EXCELLENT book, but just a cursory viewing of the movie revealed over 144 mistakes (Things that were in the book that changed in the movie...) If you're a purist, DON'T watch this! I walked away saying, "Did they even READ the book?" My biggest complaint is the Character of Sam Westing. The movie made him look like a big jerk to Turtle instead of the friend he truly was...