A nothing film.

It literalises a work which doesn't need literalising and in doing so crumbles its allegorical power. Admittedly there are some interesting visuals but they lack dreamlike metaphor and suggestion, yes, here is surrealism as strained through pragmatism. Everything is surface.

What is worse is that it has the gall to smugly suggest that K was being prosecuted for some form of Pedophilia with his cousin. The cursory words from the director, the peeping girls at Torterelli's appartment and the threatening of his 'Ice pick' slyly and un-skillfully suggest this. This is a major faux pas which goes against the whole point of the novel - There should be zero suggestion that any crime has been committed. I can only ascertain that this was some form of self appeasement from Wells. Trying to logicise the courts actions and assuage the viewers disbelief at their absurd actions.

Technically speaking the acting was poor also. A lot of mechanical jabbering delivered without passion in the eyes (It seems churlish to mention the dubbing). The plot ticks all the boxes of the novel but screams past the subtleties as to make their linear dot-to-dot inclusion a trivial exercise (I have in my mind the idea of Well's wanting to conquer Kafka's Trial). Why not just create ones own version of events. A new creative take on the source material. This is what Tarkovsky undertook with Solaris even to the derision of Lem Himself. And he greatly succeeded. Even Soderberg's version succeeds in dancing to its own merry tune... In all, with the Trial Wells has managed to display the crude limitations of cinema in juxtaposition with literature. In my book, any adaptation within the creative arts should never attempt to outright mimic. One must take their own understanding of the themes and run with them down a brand new alley.

I can't help but feel Wells is trying to pat himself on the back by pasting a novel onto the screen, which in the end adds nothing to the greater discourse of The novel. The Trial: film as Mime