The House of The Spirits (film) - Differences From The Novel

Differences From The Novel

• Clara did not fall in love with Esteban the first time she saw him. In the book, in fact, she says she never loved him at all.
• In the novel, it is stated Clara was the fifteenth child of her parents, of which eleven were alive. However, in the film, Clara's only mentioned sister is Rosa.
• Nana, Clara's nanny as a child and later nanny to her children, is not named or mentioned in the movie. The Del Valle's unnamed Indian servant plays some of her roles in the book.
• Clara's idol Uncle Marcos is also not mentioned at all in the movie.
• Esteban's hacienda was a family heritage.
• In the book, Esteban stays at Tres Marías 9 years, rather than 20.
• Esteban also raped many other women during his stay in Las Tres Marías, and even after his marriage. This is not mentioned either.
• Clara's powers in the movie differ from the book, where she can also talk to ghosts.
• In the book, Esteban and Clara go on a honeymoon after marrying, and move into a house in the capital, not Las Tres Marías. Later, when going to spend a summer at Tres Marías, Clara likes it and decides to stay.
• Clara is not supposed to know about her parent's death in the book, as Esteban believes it will threaten her pregnancy, but she find out in a dream, whereas in the movie she is quickly told.
• Clara also has two twin sons in the book, Jaime and Nicolás.
• Nicolás had a lover in the book named Amanda, with whom Jaime was also in love. Amanda was absent from the movie.
• Esteban García, Esteban's bastard son, hardly has a role in the novel. It is Esteban's bastard grandson (also named Esteban García) who has the important role.
• Pedro Tercero plays the guitar in the book, and sings a song about the Chickens and the Fox. In the movie, the song is transformed into a story he tells at Clara's school, and he does not play the guitar.
• Blanca is not sent to a boarding school in the book: instead, Esteban and Clara move back to the capital, where Blanca spends the year, going to Las Tres Marías for summer. During her teenage years, after an earthquake which causes her parents to stay in Las Tres Marías, Blanca, now in a boarding school, fakes an illness so she can go live in Las Tres Marías too.
• The tremendous earthquake that happens in Las Tres Marías and cause some 10000 casualties in the whole country is absent from the movie.
• In the book, Clara and Blanca move to the capital house after Esteban hits Clara, not Clara's parents' house.
• Esteban's revenge towards Pedro Tercero in the book is partially successful: he manages to cut off three of Pedro's fingers.
• Blanca actually does marry the Count Jean de Satigny in the book, but leaves his house still pregnant when she discovers his tendency towards homosexuality and his love towards pornography, especially using the Indian servants.
• Alba is born in Clara's capital house, and Clara predicts good luck and happiness in her future.
• It is Alba and not Blanca who is pampered by Esteban.
• Esteban Garcia's abuses of Blanca as a child happen to Alba in the actual novel. He also kisses her forcefully in the mouth at her fourteenth birthday, when coming to ask for Esteban to give him a reference to get into the military.
• Blanca and Pedro manage to meet before the People's Party win in the book.
• In the book, Alba is introduced to her father earlier, but knows him only as her mother's lover and a good friend, believing the count to be her father.
• In the novel, Alba is a teenager during the Coup, and is going to university, while in the movie she is a child.
• Miguel, Amanda's brother and later Alba's lover, who is a revolutionist, is absent in the movie.
• Alba participates in various revolutionist manifestations before and after the Coup, due to her link with Miguel. Blanca, in the novel, has little interest in these.
• Alba is arrested by the Political Police for dating Miguel, and is tortured and abused by Esteban Garcia in the novel. She then wishes for death, and Clara's spirit comes to tell her not to. She is later released with the help of an old prostitute. This whole sequence happens to Blanca in the movie, with the difference that she is arrested for dating Pedro Tercero.
• In the novel, Blanca and Pedro Tercero leave for Canada alone, Alba does not come with them. In the movie Pedro Tercero goes to Canada alone: Blanca will reach him only after Esteban's death, and Alba will go with her mother.
• In the novel, Esteban dies in the capital house, with Alba by his side, confusing her with Clara and Rosa, instead of alone in Las Tres Marías with Clara's spirit.
• Alba is pregnant at the end of the novel, but she doesn't know if the child is Miguel's or Esteban Garcia's. Blanca's character in the movie, who takes over most of Alba's role, is not pregnant and decides to leave the nation, whereas Alba, in the novel, wants to remain until she can.

The main difference is that Alba's role is minimized, and Blanca takes over most of that role:

• Being pampered by Esteban Trueba as a child.
• Being abused by Esteban Garcia as a child.
• Being involved in the rebel and revolutionist demonstrations due to a romantic link.
• Being arrested because of said romantic link.
• Being tortured and abused by Esteban Garcia, to be later released with the help of the old prostitute.

However, Blanca also plays her novel role in the movie such as:

• Her involvement with Pedro.
• The fight she has with her father and that makes him slap Clara.
• The bastard child she has.
• Meeting Pedro as a lover.
• Hiding Pedro during the Coup, and later going into exile with him.

This combination of two roles into Blanca was probably done to shorten the movie in length.