The books versus the series: Apple’s ‘Presumed Innocent’ TV series adapts novel

Those of us who love both movies and books have gotten accustomed to what it means when a beloved book gets adapted for the big screen: A lot of it goes away.

That’s inevitable — a movie’s typical two-hour running time doesn’t allow much room for leisurely storytelling or minor subplots, and favorite details may well disappear.

I remember, years ago, interviewing a group of kids about a “Harry Potter” movie, and each of them had a long litany of treasured scenes that didn’t make the cut. (None of these viewers, to be clear, would have minded at all if the movie was four hours long.)

Grown-up moviegoers tend to be a little more sanguine; we might complain a bit about omissions, but we know the book is still on the shelf, intact.

But when a streaming service adapts a book as a limited series with multiple episodes, there’s room to dive deep into the story and wallow a bit. I’ve been thinking about this when watching a handful of recent streaming series adapted from favorite crime novels.

Netflix’s wonderfully moody “Ripley,” based on Patricia Highsmith’s “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” went the faithful route: hewing more closely than either of the movie adaptations to Highsmith’s story, right down to the meticulous step-by-step disposal of an inconvenient corpse. While the casting was at times unusual (it feels off to have the 40-something Andrew Scott playing 20-something Ripley, though he’s often uncannily good in the role), the adaptation is thoughtful and effective.

There are no surprises, if you’ve read the book, but there’s pleasure in meticulous reexamination of the scenery when you know which way the road is turning.

By contrast, if you’ve read Scott Turow’s 1987 legal thriller “Presumed Innocent,” or seen the 1990 Harrison Ford movie based on the novel, you’ll find the new Apple TV+ eight-episode series to be startlingly different.

The story at the center is the same, with its simple hook: Prosecutor Rusty Sabich (Jake Gyllenhaal), a man comfortable in a courtroom and fascinated by the machinations of the law, finds himself suddenly on the other side — on trial for the murder of a colleague with whom he was having an affair. The movie neatly distilled the book into two hours (revising the ending somewhat, but keeping the killer’s identity the same); the 2024 adaptation leisurely stretches things out again, but in mostly new directions.

I was sorry to see the loss of Alejandro “Sandy” Stern, Rusty’s courtly and masterful attorney (played by Raul Julia in the movie), but otherwise, the changes are interesting and timely: “Presumed Innocent” the novel, nearly 40 years old, remains a crackling read but has some views on gender and race that could use some updating. Now, the victim Carolyn Polhemus (Renate Reinsve) is more smart lawyer than sexpot, a subplot involving the judge is gone, Rusty’s wife Barbara (Ruth Negga) is given more autonomy and the Sabiches are a biracial family.

Other twists: Rusty and Barbara have two teenagers rather than one grade school child (noteworthy, as they’re now old enough to figure in the plot); the dead woman, as we learn in Episode 1, is pregnant; Rusty’s boss Raymond Horgan (Bill Camp) gets more of an arc, and Rusty has an anger problem made far more evident here.

And it’s all handsomely captured, with almost every room caught in atmospheric darkness.

Gyllenhaal does well as the series’ anti-hero; he’s not afraid to make Rusty a darker character than Ford did, and you watch fascinated, both rooting and not rooting for him.

Like the book, the “Presumed Innocent” series is most compelling in its courtroom scenes; there’s a sequence in the seventh episode, with Rusty facing off against his nemesis Tommy Molto (Peter Sarsgaard, delightfully reptilian), that’s absolutely electric.

Also a delight: O-T Fagbenle, as lawyer Nico Della Guardia, has a way of stretching out his sentences as if it amuses him to see them distorted. And Negga, always a fascinating actor, hides a world of pain in Barbara’s quiet gaze.

As of this writing, I’m still waiting for the final episode, but I honestly have no idea who the murderer is, which is exactly how you want to approach the late scenes of a whodunit.

(I don’t think it’s the same killer as the previous versions, who I won’t name here. But who knows.)