The Westing Game

This movie has a "made-for-tv" feel to it with mediocre actors and shallow character development. Being a big fan of the book, I was disappointed that the movie made some major changes to the plot and even eliminated some heirs. The joy of the book are the quarky characters and unexpected twists of the story. The movie comes across as more bland and contrived. I didn't really root for any of the characters to win the game. My advice, skip the film and just read the book by Ellen Raskin which won the Newbery Medal.

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

When I read the Westing Game, I thought the movie was going to be good. Unfortunately, it bit the big one. I'm not one to mince words, so I'll admit that that was one of the worst movies on the planet. Extremely boring, not one interesting part in the whole shmere. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ................

Okay. There were too many characters in the book, too many plot twists and (sadly) too much thinking required on the part of the audience to make a movie of the story as written by Raskin. But why oh why rewrite the whole thing from start to finish? Why make Angela a witchy debutante instead of the goody-two shoes she had been forced to become? Why did Grace Wexler promptly become an interior designer (which is what she wanted to be in the book and instead, she became a restaraunteur while Mr. Hoo became an inventor)? Why throw out Flora (who became a true mother figure to Turtle when it became clear that Grace was the worst mother on record) to pair Turtle with Chris (who was originally partners with Angela's fiance, Dr. Deere)? Why completely subvert the whole premise of Sam Westing's game which was to release Crow from her misguided suffering and free her to live life to the fullest--not to punish her for past misdeeds? The whole story became just another run of the mill kid flick with characters from central casting--no depth, no personality, no nothing.

Someone, somewhere, PLEASE, read the book and make us a far better movie than this mess. Yes, the book was tough to read because of the shifting viewpoints, but this mess cut out all the need to think, inquire or analyze. What a disaster!