The first third of the movie was dry and slow. The characters acted like they were just reading their lines. There were many details from the beginning of the book that could have been included and would have made the first 1/3 of the movie so much better. The characters didn't act passionate in their roles at all the way the book portrayed them. If you could see behind the scenes it seemed like you would see two actors on the set who were very uncomfortable showing their feelings toward each other in front of the production crew. The lead girl was liked by all her classmates but never gave back to those characters emotionally either. She was much too quiet.