Film tip

The Glass Castle

Movie adaptations rarely live up to the literary originals, and “The Glass Castle” doesn’t break that rule. I dare say, though, that it is good enough to satisfy fans (like me) of Jeannette Walls’ memoir. Walls grew up poor and itinerant, with an alcoholic dreamer of a father and a laissez-faire mother. At times, the film captures the conflicts in Jeannette’s childhood — the sense of magic and love she often felt from her too-free-spirited parents and the opposing sense of fear and anger at their being unreliable and irresponsible. If the second half of the movie becomes a little too ham-fisted, there’s still plenty here to like.