Can't really guess how liking the movie or the short story better would break down by gender, except that the screen play opens up the lives of the female characters.
No, I don't mean women like the movie better because they're more sympathetic to or interested in the female characters. I haven't seen that tendency at all.
I think what I might be getting at is, the movie is slightly more romantic in the traditional sense -- with emphasis on the "slightly" (it definitely never gets sentimental or maudlin or any of those icky things). But Annie Proulx is even
more unsentimental, and while up to a point I admire that about the story in a literary sense, in some cases she goes so far as to keep me a bit distanced from the characters emotionally. And -- so shoot me if this sounds sexist -- women sometimes tend to be more drawn than men are toward romantic fare.
It's just slightly, slightly more (and oh gosh, I know I'm going to get in huge trouble for using this term) chick flicky.
We can't ignore them and just run off to the Motel Siesta!
Well, I do. I'm one of those people whose sympathies for Alma in that scene are purely intellectual. They don't impinge on my happiness for J & E.
I simply do not get any of this, any of it at all.
Me neither, Jack, but there's a whole thread devoted to this topic (13 pages long, at present) on this forum, where I assume Artiste outlines his views. So what's say we move on from the anti-gay/Jack discussion here.