An hour in, and unfortunately this isn't very good. I loved the book, and thought the adaptation would be much closer to the book, and I get all the inherent problems with that, but this still is very tonally and substantively off. Even as a straight movie, had I not read the book, this wouldn't be very good. I also love Harper from Industry, but her character is jarring here. Julia Roberts is almost chewing the scenery. It isn't meant to be a racial comedy/awakening, it's highlighting subtle class and race tensions, but the Roberts character here is almost parody like as a "Karen". It's also exploring tension in a marriage, tension in relationships. it's about a liberal kind of cowardice. The movie showed that when he left the woman on the side of the road.
The book was way more subtle, and thoughtful with is characterizations.
It's got that Netflix look, all sanded edges and CGI, everything looks like an imitation of real life, it's not very naturalistic, which was a big part of the book. Everyday life. The ennuni of the upper class, the racial tension across the upper class, racially, but also resource wise. It was a very sharp, incisive look at the way people live their lives, their inner fears, their weaknesses. This has little nods and heavy handed references, but no depth.
This is a movie/book that should be essentially like a play, in a closed set, for like 3/4 of the movie. There's some great scenery, but it's meant to realistically build a world of vacationing family from Brooklyn, who are upper middle class academics/career professionals. All the best scenes from the book's first part are cut, or reduced to basically nods. The shopping trip, the sex scene, their work lives. And I understand that, but in doing so, they have drained all the tension, and traded it for a random oil tanker scene, which is kinda technically impressive, but not tense, or scary, or even captured very believably. You are supposed to be immersed in their world and then have that undone by the arrival of the other family. Here, everything is too glossy, too quick, too few details, though the house and all the manicured nails and door handles look great. It has no grit, no depth.
