Empathy Speaks Louder than Words: A Study of Empathetic Adaptation of the Film Homestay (2018)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48048/ajac.2026.164Abstract
This research examines how filmic text can amplify the message of empathy in an adapted literary text through the adaptation process. This qualitative research is designed as a case study. The cases, selected through purposive sampling, include Eto Mori’s novel Colorful (1998) and its film adaptation, Homestay (2018), directed by Parkpoom Wongpoom. The research employs the textual analysis method, focusing primarily on the concepts of narrative empathy (Keen, 2007) and Dantean space (D’Adamo, 2018). The findings illustrate that Colorful enhances character identification and readers’ empathy through its thematic and narrative devices. The theme of human fallibility, which is ingrained in human nature, is explored, while literary devices, including tone and first-person point of view, are employed to evoke empathy. Homestay, the film adaptation, amplifies its communication of empathy. The conventions of the thriller film genre override the lighthearted tone of the novel. The film leverages diverse empathetic devices across thematic, temporal, and spatial dimensions. The film also intensifies the transient nature of time and life, in addition to character identification. The implications of the study underline the foregrounded empathy in the novel-to-film adaptation, defining this process and its product as an empathetic adaptation. The research suggests that further exploration of the interrelationship between empathy and film adaptation is encouraged, especially in Thai, Asian, and other contexts beyond Hollywood landscapes.
Highlights
• This study utilizes the concept of narrative empathy to analyze Parkpoom Wongpoom’s Homestay (2018), a Thai film adaptation, and the original novel Colorful (1998), written by Eto Mori, to examine how the novel’s mechanism of empathy is more pronounced through the film’s adaptation process.
• The original novel is analyzed to establish a framework of empathy; it is found that the novel is rooted in the theme of human imperfection—a prerequisite for human empathy—utilizing a lighthearted narrative tone and first-person point of view to invite the reader’s empathy.
• While preserving the original novel’s theme, the film amplifies its presentation of empathy through various thematic and narrative elements, including the alteration of genre from a lighthearted fantasy drama to an urgency-driven thriller, the concept of time’s transience, and visual spatialization.
• Through the lens of “Dantean space,” this study finds that spatial cinematization immerses viewers in the protagonist’s psychological domain, effectively evoking profound character identification and empathetic engagement.
• The analysis identifies the film as an “empathetic adaptation,” where fostering empathy serves as the primary creative goal of the film.
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