Jose Saramago's novel by the same name is one of my favorite books of all time.  I'd put it in my personal top three.  It's ripe for film adaptation, given its plotty structure and strong, distinct ensemble of voices.  When I heard it was being adapted into a film, I was excited and trepidacious.

When I heard that Fernando Meirelles was chosen to direct, my excitement grew.  Meirelles is a brilliant director; City of God and The Constant Gardener are both visionary films with powerful stories at their center.  Plus, Meirelles speaks portuguese (Blindness was written in portuguese) - meaning he could read the original text on which the film was based.  A huge plus to doing the story justice...

I walked away from the film disappointed and confused, trying to put my finger on where it had gone wrong.  It was, after all, pretty true to the novel. What made the novel so great that the film was lacking?

Technically, the film was strong. Meirelles and DP César Charlone have a lot of fun playing with the camera to create this world, and the art department does a fabulous job realizing the texture and grit of this world.

The acting is solid.  No one wows, but all (even Mark Ruffalo, who usually bugs me - and Danny Glover, who's horribly mis-cast) support their weight. Julianne Moore turns in her usual solid performance as the doctor's wife.

So what is it?

Blindness paints a pretty bleak portrait of the world, and there are scenes in the novel that are haunting even without an image.  To add the sounds of grunts and the image of dark thrusting make it so much more uncomfortable to watch.

Saramago's novel did a brilliant job of tempering these horrors with moments of humanity. And the humanity is ultimately the point.  This bleak world is necessary to draw the humanity out of its cast of characters.  It was this humanity, I've concluded, that is the critical missing ingredient.

I think the visual medium really works against them in this regard.  In the book, when describing how filthy the wards have become, the reader's attention pictures the long halls caked with feces and urine.  But when two characters are making a connection with one another, a reader's attention is on that - and that alone.  The rest of the world falls away.  But in film, there's always the reminder of where they are (because you can *see* it behind them!).

Furthermore, the script got too rushed to really delve into any one character within the ensemble.  The surface of each was skimmed, but whole storylines that really fleshed out each of them was left on the editing floor.  The storyline of the man with the patch and the woman with dark sunglasses was one of the most beautiful parts of the novel for me - and beautifully redemptive in the end.  The movie only briefly hints at this entire story.

So the characters end up being just that - characters.  Not people that audiences care about, sympathize with.  And without that, the story falls flat.   It leaves one asking, "Why put myself through this?"

Read the book instead.  One of *the* best books I've ever read...