One philosophises over quandaries of the human condition while the other argues that love is a redemptive quality in our nature. Warm Bodies is exactly what you expect from a zombie rom-com but it gives a new meaning to ‘reality bites’.
Dubbed a “zombie romance” by the Seattle Post, Isaac Marion’s book was published in 2010, five years after Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight, and the two have been lumped together ever since.
While Meyer’s books were cleverly written they are leagues behind the richness of Marion’s theme. It courses its way across every page and infects every piece of dialogue.
In 2013, Warm Bodies was given the big screen treatment by director Jonathan Levine, which smashed together mushy feelings of love and brain eating with surprisingly effective results.
But which one should you devour first, and what are the main differences between the two?
The root of the problem
As R shuffles aimlessly through an airport his first musing is: “I’m dead but it’s not so bad. I’ve learned to live with it.” It’s not just a lack of heartbeat or urge to eat people that separates Marion’s zombies from the conventional. It’s the overwhelming sense they aren’t really dead but have stopped living.
R’s internal monologue, witty as it is, tends to linger a little on the darker side of things. A supernatural depression has fallen on the world and R serves as a necromantic Sigmund Freud, painfully observing as humanities droll traditions survive after death.
It isn’t until he eats the brains of a depressed, love-sick teen called Perry that R begins to feel the bittersweet twinge of his heart once more, and falls for Perry’s (still living) girlfriend Julie.
Ironically, the macabre memories of the living – the majority of which revolve around unwillingly witnessing their loved ones grisly demise – is the catalyst for R’s resurgence.
Levine’s film unfortunately offers a sickly solution to the world’s despondency through smutterings of true love. And in true Hollywood fashion it is deeply misguided and slightly disturbing – as R gorges on Perry’s brain and never admits to Julie that he ate her boyfriend.
Youth in revolt
In Marion’s book, R is dragged into a loveless zombie marriage and saddled with a couple of kids. It’s not long before he discovers her cheating on him with another corpse. R watches their bodies aimlessly “slap together”, as if going through the motions, but he shrugs it off. Apparently, death doesn’t leave us immune to infidelity and unhappy matrimony.
It’s clear that R’s attack on existence is not purely for brains. He craves something more than the hum-drum expectations of others: get married, have some kids and miserably meander about until you die.
Marion’s zombies are on autopilot, still living according to the shackles of society but unfeeling towards the repercussions. R watches the ‘Boneys,’ who have now fully succumbed to death, dishing out weddings and school lessons by the barrel-full, maintaining normalcy in the new, unnatural order of things.
At a glance they seem like a liberated troupe of undead anarchists, but on closer inspection they fit snugly into society’s mould (minus a few limbs and a heartbeat), which the Boney elders ruthlessly enforce.
They stick photos on the walls creating an album of necromantic memories, constantly talk about the way things have “always been” and harp on about how the status quo cannot change. In Marion’s telling, even in death, the prerogatives of youth culture clash with the ridgid ideals of tradition.
Levine’s film echoes this with less gravity. It is actualised in the form of Colonel Grigio (John Malcovich), who is adamant that the silly fancies of his youthful daughter Julie (Teresa Palmer) will have no bearing on the future.
The movie shows how the young are forced to grow old before their time, as Perry (Dave Franco) is left with no other choice than to shoot his zombie father in the face, and the annoyingly whitewashed Nora (Analeigh Tipton) has to put her nursing dreams on the backburner. A sense of injustice simmers throughout the film as two teenagers attempt to patch festering wounds opened by the discord of generations.
Both heavily imply that the zombie curse – that crystallizes the numbness of depression into the veins of its host – was brought about by the failings of the previous generation. This is epitomised in the finales of both the book and the film, when the younger, invigorated ‘Fleshies’ (zombies that still have some flesh) revolt against ‘Boneys’ to reclaim their shot at humanity.
Beauty in a battle scar
An understandable sugar-coating occurs in Levine’s film. Marion’s ability to explain the paradox of the human condition and make it sympathetic is commendable, but to achieve such richness in a film is ambitious.
Marion’s Julie is not the shimmering sunny angel Levine portrays her to be. It is unfortunate that in order for the true love message to burn its impression into the hearts of its audience, the living female protagonist must be pure.
This move to make Julie squeaky clean laughably affronts the meaning of Marion’s book. But can we ever expect the unbreakable cast of cultural expectations to flex with us? Unless there is a zombie apocalypse, the answer is no.
Julie struggles with self-destruction and depression, in both mediums, but in the book this melancholy is rotting her to the core. After her mother committed suicide by deliberately running into a hungry horde, turning the dred Coln Grigio more militant and unfeeling, Julie had a ‘creative period’.
Dealing with a boatload of torment amid the end of days, she (understandably) abused substances and prostituted herself…but somehow found the inner-strength to pull it back. Julie is a jumble of scars and unhealed hurts yet she remains hopeful, optimistic and cheerful. She is the embodiment of blind hope; a walking wellness directory; the most human of us all.
She is not just a peppy, pretty piece of meat to catalyse R’s return to life. Levine’s magic pixie girl reworking of her was probably the most disappointing part of the adaptation.
And so…
One philosophises over quandaries of the human condition while the other argues that love is a redemptive quality in our nature by crafting an insipid, generic romance.
Levine’s film brings the characters to life (ha, get it?) effectively and suitably, delivering an entertaining flit into the world of corpse romance. Holt and Malkovich show that good actors can make a sinking film float, but don’t let that fool you into thinking it has a strong message on alternative or diverse couplings.
The film is a good effort, but it doesn’t hold a candle to Marion’s character development and blatant challenges to culturally acceptable practices. If you were to stand the two mediums together, I fear Levine’s film would hagger, splutter and choke out it’s last labourous breath, without any chance of rising again.
Life is short. Read the book first.
bloggy balboa 