She Who Must Be Obeyed and I were feeling sorta glum earlier this week as we climbed back into her trusty Subaru and headed westward to Washington, cheered only a bit by the next morning’s scheduled meeting (with someone no one would believe if I reported it honestly, so I won’t).
Somewhere along western Montana’s I-90, beside the banks of the Clark Fork west of David James Duncan’s home in Lolo (just west of Missoula), Jake sent a text asking if we knew that The River Why film had recently popped up on Netflix. He had apparently watched it the night before, at least as much as voracious reader Jake could stand; his warnings about the film were sharply critical and copious.
Count me among those who still contend that Duncan’s The River Why is one of the finest fly fishing themed fiction works ever written. True, it’s about much more than simply fly fishing, though it would be utterly impossible to comprehend fully without understanding something about the language and culture of fishers.
I picked up my first copy of the book in Jackson, Wyoming in 1985; it was She Who Must Be Obeyed’s first time to see the Tetons and Yellowstone. We were lucky enough to grab an early season campsite in the ‘old’ Jenny Lake campground; I was so entranced by the book I stayed up all night reading it by the light of my old hissing Coleman lantern (2 mantle of course).
That paperback copy is dogeared and worn now, with a large rent through the front cover induced by a scissors wielding daughter at 3 or 4 (and who’s now 24).
SWMBO and I sat down a couple of evenings ago to watch the movie; the opening minute or two offered a few compelling scenes of western Oregon rivers. Little did we know then that those scenes would be the highlight of the movie.
The filmmaker and cast captured none of the richly textured characters that Duncan developed in the book; their interplay, a cornerstone of the story, was neutered in the screenplay and acted dismally. The fishing scenes were contrived at best and protagonist Gus portrayed as a fish-bonking fly geek.
The film team took a great story, ran it through a wood chipper, grabbed a handful of dust and tried to craft something, anything, out of it. They failed.
This fisher’s opinion – The River Why movie indeed represents fly fishing’s kobayashi maru scenario. Watching this film is so painful it’s almost a near death experience; there’s simply no way to watch it and survive without some type of intervention or cheat.
The best cheat? Forget the movie. Read the book. Reading a few reviews around the fflogosphere today I’m amazed at how many fishers admit they’ve not read the book (most often revealed as this movie is discussed in some form or another…)
Any and everyone who reads the book can employ the finest graphics and image processor ever utilized in the universe to visualize, enjoy and immerse yourself in this story – your imagination.
Don’t have the book? Get it now.
