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Slaughterhouse-Five Movie Review

Slaughterhouse-Five is a 1972 science fiction anti-war film directed by George Roy Hill and starring Michael Sacks. It’s one of the best book adaptations out there.

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“Only on Earth is there any talk of free will“

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Based on the 1969 eponymous novel by Kurt Vonnegut, the film adapts the book extremely well. Some could argue that it is overly faithful, but I would disagree. I prefer faithful adaptations over loose ones, and this is as faithful as you can be. The things that they changed still have the same tone that the other sections have. It’s all done surprisingly seamlessly.

The editing is exceptional. It’s by far the greatest accomplishment of this adaptation. The novel is famous for jumping through time, one of the first such works of fiction actually. The movie is perfectly adapted in that one scene flows impeccably into another sequence set in the past or in the future. Again everything is seamless without feeling disjointed and I was at awe how incredibly edited and paced this movie is.

The utter absence of the iconic “So it goes” line from the novel as well as the somewhat subdued thematic resonance bothered me, but overall the film explores well the horrible impact of war, its anti-war sensibilities are wonderfully achieved and there is this terrific hospital conversation about the complex post-war feelings about the Dresden bombing that summarized so well both sides of the argument.

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Slaughterhouse-Five somewhat reduced the science fiction elements that were much more abundant in the novel itself, but they are still excellent. The mating sequence was very entertaining despite its dated quality. The Tralfamadorians weren’t portrayed on screen due to the limited technology of the time or maybe even budgetary constraints. That was disappointing, but expected and it’s better honestly not to have them at all than to feature dated effects. The dome itself looked splendid and quite memorable.

Michael Sacks is quite memorable in the role of Billy Pilgrim. He fits the role perfectly and even though he is an unknown actor to me, his acting here was strong. Paul Lazzaro is also terrific and the ending of the movie is absolutely incredible how operatic it felt. There is one character here that is actually much better than in the book and that is Valencia. A fat, ditzy wife of Billy’s, her constant empty promises that she will lose weight were hilarious. She’s a great presence and the movie is overall even wittier than the book.

Slaughterhouse-Five looks excellent due to terrific cinematography and some quite memorable imagery with the bombing aftermath being even dystopian in its effect. The direction from the great George Roy Hill is competent and superb while the film’s score is also wonderful. The choice to include classical music paid off tremendously, especially as it relates to the space scenes that were elevated with that great music in the similar vein to ‘2001’.

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The movie definitely has sparse dialogue, which somewhat prevented its themes from being better explored, but at the end of the day that was a very strong artistic choice that led to even more increased cinematic qualities of this work. The film flies by how engaging it is while only a couple of 70s dated elements such as some humor prevented it from being timeless.