Back in May 2008 when I saw the movie “Then She Found Me” starring Helen Hunt and Bette Midler, I was impressed with the extensive adoption issues covered: infertility, ‘adopted child’ vs ‘home grown’, being found vs searching, the poignancy of the adoptee’s longing for a child of her body rather than through adoption, the anxieties expressed about search. When the credits ran, I noticed that it was based on a book. A friend said she had read it and it was different from the movie.
This week I found and ordered the book from Amazon. The author’s blog linked through the Amazon site acknowledged that the movie was different from the book, and the author, Elinor Lipman, was magnanimous about the changes made by Helen Hunt, the actress who spent ten years getting the movie produced.
Now that I have read the book, I see the changes that Helen Hunt brought to the project. She didn’t loaf while she tried to get the film funded; she delved into the field of adoption even more, and fleshed out the issues of adoption even better than the book.
The one major change which is better in the book is the birth father’s identity. In the movie version, there were several different stories told by the birth mother, and this viewer was left wondering which, if any, of the stories was true. In the book, it is clear who the father is, and his role is handled respectfully too.
Read the book or see the movie, now out on DVD. Both are good ways to educate ‘civilians’ (i.e., those not directly involved in adoption) to the issues faced by adoption triad members and their extended families.
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