Chapin City Blues

Don’t you just hate it when someone on the Internet feels the need to compare a movie to the book it’s adapted from? It bugs the piss out of me, right? It’s so annoying? I am so glad we’re in agreement, because last month, I decided to hunker down and watch one romcom flick a day for all twenty-nine of them (thank you leap year!). One of those movies was The Map to Tiny Perfect Things. Of course, when I learned the movie was based on a short story by Lev Grossman (who also wrote the screenplay), I had to read it. 

Part of me wanted to compare the two versions of the story, but I did it in the wrong order. Most pretentious, the-book-was-better people always read the story first. It wasn’t until I was half way through the movie that I questioned if it was adapted from something. It had all the markers of a young adult novel.

So…What’s It About?

Mark finds himself trapped in a time loop, reliving August 4th over and over.  The world resets itself each morning and everyone follows the same script unless he interacts with them. What’s worse is that he’s going through it alone. That is until he sees Margaret, an outlier just like him. Together they set off to make the most of August 4th, finding every magical moment and mapping them out until they find a way to break free.

Who’s In The Movie?

• Margaret – Kathryn Newton (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Detective Pikachu, Freaky)
• Mark – Kyle Allen (West Side Story, American Horror Story, All My Life)
• Henry – Jermaine  Harris (Ballers, Saturdays)
• Daniel – Josh Hamilton (The Walking Dead, Eighth Grade)
• Phoebe – Anna Mikami (Birds of Prey)
• Emma – Cleo Fraser (The Unicorn, Transparent)

You’re Going to be Annoying, Aren’t You?

One thing that I loved most about The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is that it reminds that not all stories belong to the narrator, something Mark learns in both the movie and the short story.

And while I don’t want to compare the short story with its adaptation, there are things that were obviously swapped. They gender-swapped the skate rat scene, having a thin skater girl in place of the plus-size skater landing the trick, while species-swapping the Sean Bean (yes, that Sean Bean!) scene from the book with some bikers and a turtle (the turtle obviously standing in for Sean Bean). Seriously, we couldn’t get Sean Bean to play himself a couple of times? 

However, both do a magnificent job telling a story about two teenagers meeting on such an unordinary day. The performances by Kathryn Newton and Kyle Allen were amazing and while underutilized, Jermaine Harris does play best friend Henry well. For a character who didn’t exist in the short story, I wished they had used him more. I understand that every one else was stuck in an endless loop, but Mark does say they would act differently if he interacted with them.

See, You Can Enjoy Both

All in all, if you’re looking for a quick, short read you can pick up the Kindle edition for $1.99 on Amazon. You can also find The Map of Tiny Perfect Things on Audible for $2.93 or listen to it for free with a Premium Plus trial. The movie is also available through Prime Video with your subscription. 

Until next time, keep on huntin’.