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A review by capn_beardy
Madly, Deeply: The Diaries of Alan Rickman by Alan Rickman
3.0
I feel bad for not liking this book more. I mean, Alan Rickman didn’t write it for other people’s consumption so why should he care if it was an absorbing page turner or not while he wrote it?
The trouble with this, and honestly, any diary turned book, is they just aren’t very interesting most of the time. There were only so many passages about dinner with this or that random British actor I could take, really.
That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it. I liked quite a bit about it. I never knew how intelligent Alan Rickman was. He even had me grabbing the dictionary for some of the words he used, which is always fantastic. He was also so very passionate about the art of acting and had many strong opinions on directors and what they’re job is on set. I particularly loved his quick movie reviews and coulda used a bunch more of those. They were always short but cut right to the good or bad so elegantly.
Unless you have a really good working knowledge of British stage and screen actors, directors, writers, and producers, however, a lot of these entries won’t interest you. I’d say that was the biggest problem with the collection. It made it extra skimmable at times.
And the biggest let down was how very little he had to say about his work on Harry Potter. A handful of stories on set at most. Usually it was complaints about the amount of press.
Alan Rickman was a great actor and it seemed like a good friend. He was well known for his privacy and while this book was a peek behind that curtain it still left a lot to wonder about. I’d only recommend it if you’re a huge fan of his work. It’s not a casual kind of read.
The trouble with this, and honestly, any diary turned book, is they just aren’t very interesting most of the time. There were only so many passages about dinner with this or that random British actor I could take, really.
That isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy it. I liked quite a bit about it. I never knew how intelligent Alan Rickman was. He even had me grabbing the dictionary for some of the words he used, which is always fantastic. He was also so very passionate about the art of acting and had many strong opinions on directors and what they’re job is on set. I particularly loved his quick movie reviews and coulda used a bunch more of those. They were always short but cut right to the good or bad so elegantly.
Unless you have a really good working knowledge of British stage and screen actors, directors, writers, and producers, however, a lot of these entries won’t interest you. I’d say that was the biggest problem with the collection. It made it extra skimmable at times.
And the biggest let down was how very little he had to say about his work on Harry Potter. A handful of stories on set at most. Usually it was complaints about the amount of press.
Alan Rickman was a great actor and it seemed like a good friend. He was well known for his privacy and while this book was a peek behind that curtain it still left a lot to wonder about. I’d only recommend it if you’re a huge fan of his work. It’s not a casual kind of read.