John Cheever's story was way better

I read Cheever's story and I must say, I found it to be a great read. The movie made me feel even worse and even more depressed. The movie added unnecessary things to pad the story and the movie also subjected the protagonist to so much more abuse. It was really terrible. There were some scenes in the movie that I really hated and I found they were not in the story. They also decided to make Ned Merrill worse off than he was in the story and way more pathetic. You can get the point of what's going on reading the story. The movie gave us too much information at times and he was treated so much worse by people. Especially in the end. That whole scene of the people verbally abusing him about his daughters was terrible. Too bad John Cheever didn't have more input on the script. There was also a very important part of the story that they decided to leave out in the movie. Ned's journey, as someone pointed out on here, did not take place in one afternoon. His journey in the story takes place over many afternoons. Time is going by, seasons are changing, and things in Ned's life are getting worse. But he can't see it. As far as Ned knows in his state, it's still the same summer afternoon and everything is fine. In the story he doesn't know why it's getting darker sooner, why it's so cold, and why people are acting so differently towards him. Then in the end he finally comes face to face with what's really going on. In this case, less is more. Cheever's story was better.