Maybe I shouldn't have read the book immediately before diving into this big-screen adaptation. Even still, I'm quite sure I wouldn't have cared for it. Elia Kazan's altered, stripped-down take on John Steinbeck's classic tome discards several crucial characters, corrupts a few more, pointlessly changes themes and completely misses the point of its source material.

Lee and Samuel, the novel's two most enduring, intriguing moral anchors, are completely excluded from the cinematic take, and in their absence the remaining cast seems to move without a firm direction, lashing out and contradicting themselves. It's shocking, how few genuinely likable characters remain in the finished film. Cal, deeply conflicted but relatable in the novel, is repurposed into a brooding, reckless, self-pitying brat in a barely-contained turn by James Dean. Aron, his naive, virtuous twin brother, becomes a sanctimonious, temperamental jerk whose sudden collapse musters little sympathy. Their father, who always meant well, despite his struggles with a bitter past, is now a two-dimensional hypocrite without depth. It's not the first time I've seen a movie divert so wildly from its roots, but it's a particularly bad example of doing so without just cause.

The production does deserve credit for experimentation, although even those fruits are a mixed bag. Stutters and stumbles are left in the dialog, which lends an unusual sense of spontaneity and honesty, but also accentuates Dean as a very awkward, rough-edged actor, not quite ready for the spotlight that's been shone upon him. Frequently ambitious camera angles scratch a creative itch, but distract from the important plot developments proceeding within. The entire film is like this, brimming like a potful of ideas, half-cooked and then served as a chewy, unrewarding finished product.

In essence, it's a bit of a phantom, bearing the ghost of a great premise but lacking in substance and heart. Threads are weakly pursued and then abandoned. Resolutions, if and when we get them, pack very little emotional punch. I expected much more. What an underachievement.