"Pretty vague job description, isn't it?"
             These lines of dialogue are spoken between the lead character, Simon Birch, and Ben Goodrich, who Oliver Platt plays. This proclamation sums up the driving force behind Simon's actions. His quest to be a hero is Simon Birch's 'maguffin'. It is the thing that drives him forward through the film. Throughout the film, he is constantly in search of a sign from God that will tell him when the time has come for him to be a hero. This most recent adaptation of a John Irving novel, "A Prayer for Owen Meany", is filmmaker Mark Johnson's, Simon Birch. What needs to be understood by the viewer is that the movie is an adaptation and not the book. Reviewers repeatedly said that the movie was not like the book and the reason for that is it is not the book. This seems to be something that critics lost sight of, the movie was judged against the book and not for its artistic merit.
             Although the film "...premiered to cheers from the audience..."(17), most critics seem to agree that there was no justice done to the Irving novel. Variety said that Simon Birch yet again showed that, "capturing Irving's mercurial tonal shifts in another medium is not so easy." The article goes on to point out that "Irving himself demanded a character (and hence title) name change. As well as "suggested by" rather than "based on" credit" (13). Irving is quoted as saying, "The story is significantly different from my novel and it would be unfair to my readers to mislead them to think they'll see 'A Prayer for Owen Meany'. It's not 'A Prayer for Owen Meany', but I liked it. And I'm happy with the way I was treated" (13.). This quote leads you to believe that Irving approved of the film, but his insistence on a name change and it having to be referred to as 'suggested by', rather than 'based on' shows just how dissatisfied he was with the adaptation. A writer for The Washington Post states that the movie's "emotional payday is...