The novel Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta is about Josephine Alibrandi a catholic girl, in her final year at high school. As the year progresses Josie alters her perspective on many issues including her culture, family, own identity, and the importance of social standing and wealth. This novel has also been turned into a film directed by Kate Woods, both the novel and film explores quite a vast variety of relationships. We will be looking into the relationship between Josie and Jacob and the differences and similarities between the novel and the film.
The first comparison from novel to film is at ‘have a say day’ when the viewers firsts get a glimpse of Jacob this really shows the audience his laid back personality and shows what Josie thinks of him compared to John. Compared to the novel the film is quite accurate while portraying this scene. The film shows Jacob giving his speech looking really relaxed and all the boys from Cook high cheering him on, the camera then crosses to Josie to see her expression after watching Jacob’s speech, looking quite unimpressed, she then looks at John and he is all lit up like a god, showing the viewers what Josie thinks of John. Both the novel and film are very similar while representing there versions of this scene, there really aren’t any differences.
The second comparison is Josie’s first date with Jacob at the movies. This doesn’t go as good as what Josie would have liked, first they argue about what movie there going to go see, Josie wants to go see romance movie and Jacob wants to see an action movie. They kept on arguing for a while but then Jacob says ‘I’ve never gone out with an ethnic girl before’ this angers Josie so much and she storms off, this is where the first difference from the novel and film are. As Josie is walking home in the novel Michael drives by and picks her up to go have a pizza, in the movie however when Michael drives by Josie just yells at