This is the second in a series of podcasts on specific books adapted to movies. The chosen book for this episode is the 2014 novel, Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer, which was adapted into a film in 2018 by director Alex Garland. It starred actress Natalie Portman.
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.
More information on Jeff Vandermeer can be found here.
The Bluray edition of the movie version of Annihilation has some excellent “making of” features. You can purchase a copy here.
Cover designs for the paperback and hardback versions of the Southern Reach Trilogy (now a quartet) have been very imaginative, especially in foreign language editions.
Absolutely essential reading for the novels is “From Annihilation to Acceptance: A Surreal Writer’s Journey” article by Jeff Vandermeer on the writing of the trilogy.
IMDB has production info and some reviews of the film adaptation of Annihilation
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.
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