Review of Playing Beatie Bow

I wanted to read this book by Ruth Park for a long time and finally got around to listening to it, we watched the movie after listening to the book. The book was great and we really enjoyed it, but various changes from the book mean that the movie is a silly, sappy 1980's teen romance (it kept bringing Blue Lagoon to mind for me, which I admit I did enjoy when it came out but I was a lot younger then and I have never bothered to watch it since), and the acting wasn't good enough to bring it up to being a decent movie. I felt they completely missed the point by making it an '80s movie and it definitely makes the movie seem very dated now, I borrowed the movie and I am very glad I didn't buy it because watching it once was more than enough.