Ep 22 Book to Movie: Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer

Comparing the 2014 New Weird novel to the 2018 Alex Garland movie adaptation

SHOW NOTES

Jeff Vandermeer’s weird novel Annihilation was published in 2014 to wide acclaim by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (a publisher not known for weird fiction). It is the first novel in what has become a quartet of novels known as the Southern Reach series. Initially, it was a trilogy (Annihilation, Authority and Acceptance), but Van Der Meer returned to the world of Southern Reach just last year (2024) with a fourth and final volume titled “Absolution”.

Annihilation was adapted into a 2018 film by director Alex Garland. In interviews for the Bluray version of the film, Garland said it was a “subject response to the novel”. He cast Natalie Portman as the lead character (called simply “The Biologist” in the novel) along with a cast of other strong female actresses like Tessa Thompson.

In this episode, my guest Matt Kelland and I discuss several aspects of the film adaptation, including what kind of adaptation it is (Literal, Theatrical, or Radical) and Production limitations. Most importantly, we discuss the story and characters of both the novel and the film and how much they differ from each other.

Special Guest Matt Kelland

I’ve known Matt for over twenty years. Originally from Britain, he moved to Florida in 2009, and now lives on a hill in a forest in Maine. Matt’s been involved with all sorts of creative endeavors for almost forty years: video games, animation, music, art, and writing. Last year, after getting laid off, he decided it was time to start focusing on his own creative work, and published his first
collection of short fiction, Nothing To See Here.