Like Eric, I thought the ending to Wonder Boys to be a bit strange. I did not the ending was any more unrealistic than the end of the book, and it's hard to expect a believable ending to a book that really has no limits on its exaggeration. What seemed off to me was the pace of the ending. The entire book is fast-paced and full of crazy adventures, and to end so suddenly seems a shame. It would have been more true to the book had Walter accidentally killed Q with the bat, and Sara ran off with Crabtree, or something. But to have it all simply end with a few book deals and a marriage is entirely out of spirit with the rest of the novel.

Unlike a normal book, there wasn't much of a follow-up to the climax of the story. IT peaked and then ended, with nothing in between. Perhaps, though, it's good that the book ended with so little action. I can't imagine ever reaching the end if Chabon kept a constant plot pace. If that were the case, the book would probably suffer from the same problems as Grady Tripp's own book.

Anyway, enough about just the book. Much to my surprise, the movie is extremely accurate. For a book with so much action, they did a very impressive job of keeping content in. I was unable to notice major differences in the plot, and just a few minor details (the gun was only supposed to fire one shot, if I remember correctly, and the first sentence of James' book was different in the movie). These are really trivial issues though, and don't change the quality of the movie in any way.

Whenever I watch a movie after I read the book, I find myself constantly waiting for the next sequence. In most movies, I'm disappointed when the sequence doesn't show, or differs entirely from how I remember it. The fact that I haven't experienced this yet is a testament to the accuracy of the movie. From Vernon Hardapple sitting on the car to the mention of the biography in James' book-bag, they seem to have kept a good sense of even minute details. I only hope the rest of the movie keeps with this pattern.