An "atmospheric drama" with no atmosphere and precious little drama

I remember when I first saw Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice (which I loved) in 2014, a colleague of mine (who hated it) was unable to grasp why I had enjoyed it so much. I tried to explain that if he had read Thomas Pynchon's 2009 novel, he'd have appreciated the film a lot more, to which he posited, "one shouldn't have to read the book in order to appreciate the film." I think I mumbled something about him being a philistine, and may have thrown some rocks at him at that point. So imagine my chagrin when I watched the decidedly underwhelming The Little Stranger, a huge box office bomb ($417,000 gross in its opening weekend in the US), and easily the weakest film in director Lenny Abrahamson's thus far impressive oeuvre. You see, I really disliked it, but the few people I know who have read Sarah Waters's 2009 novel (which I have not), have universally loved it, telling me I would have liked it a lot more if I was familiar with the source material. To them, I can say only this – "one shouldn't have to read the book in order to appreciate the film."

For my complete review, please visit: https://boxd.it/wRMLX