The Right Lane

There will be two completely separate and, I might add, mutually hostile audiences for the resulting film. One will be composed of “Hitchhiker” fans, millions strong, who will interpret every minute discrepancy between what they are watching onscreen and what they once read on the page as a heresy punishable by law or, where possible, stoning. These people are lunatics, and I am one of them. Opposing us will be hordes of decent, ungeeky humans who will be bewildered and patchily amused by the tale of Arthur Dent and his voyage among the stars. Arthur (Martin Freeman) is an Englishman whose concern for his house, which is about to be demolished to make way for a bypass, is overtaken by his concern for the earth, which is about to be demolished by alien busybodies to make way for a hyperspatial express route.

Reviews such as these are why you ought to read Anthony Lane. Why you ought to go to a bookstore at once to pick up his Nobody's Perfect. And why you ought to shake your head over the state of film reviewing in India today.