Only Book to Movie Change That I Wish They Hadn't Done

I think it's an interesting plot twist but I imagine it was due to time constraints. For it not to seem like just a random sidebar in the movie plot I think a fair amount of attention would have to had been given to it. It may have taken away from the main story a bit too much for the filmmaker's taste.

YES! I have not read the book but they most definitely should have put that in. For sure!

I was thinking about that today while rewatching the movie. The book had a lot of background on a lot of secondary (even tertiary) characters like that and it's great that it shows how related people are to one another.

However, I don't think it would have worked in the movie. When you are thinking book adaptation, you need not only to focus on main characters but you also need to think about fact delivery.

How could they have introduced that particular piece of information about the judge?
- Third person account: having someone mention how the judge had a grudge against Frank, even Ninny, would have been unnecessary and would have distracted from the verdict, which was about our protagonists.
- Flashback: showing the judge's daughter with Frank earlier. It would have been a long road for not much and most people wouldn't have remembered it later anyway.

The truth is the case was so light (no body, second hand accounts, lots of conjecture) that it would have been thrown out of court before the trial even began if the suspects hadn't been a lesbian and a black guy and the victim a white man. It was credible enough that a judge with common sense would just choose to believe the word of a reverend over all that conjecture.

For every lie I unlearn I learn something new - Ani Difranco