“Shall I teach you a trick? The way we’re lying now, I used to lie like this when I was little. I used to climb in through that window the night before I was going to play a game, but you mustn’t tell the caretaker!”
Alicia nods and promises.
“Then what?” she wonders.
“Then I would lie here and look up at the roof and think, ‘Now I’m alone in the world.’ I sort of memorized the silence. Because I’ve never been
scared when I’m alone, only among other people.”
“Me too.”
Benji hates the fact that the child knows exactly how that feels. She’s too young for that. But he tells it like it is:
“No one can hurt you when you’re alone.”
“Shall I teach you a trick? The way we’re lying now, I used to lie like this when I was little. I used to climb in through that window the night before I was going to play a game, but you mustn’t tell the caretaker!”
Alicia nods and promises.
“Then what?” she wonders.
“Then I would lie here and look up at the roof and think, ‘Now I’m alone in the world.’ I sort of memorized the silence. Because I’ve never been
scared when I’m alone, only among other people.”
“Me too.”
Benji hates the fact that the child knows exactly how that feels. She’s too young for that. But he tells it like it is:
“No one can hurt you when you’re alone.”
“I owe myself the biggest apology for putting up with what I didn’t deserve.”
— Unknown
The problem with Benji
I started looking at the characters that I didn’t feel got their due in the HBO-series Björnstad. Benji Ovich was perhaps the clearest example. He should have been more fleshed out for several reasons.
Tv-Benji is treated a bit like Ana. He’s there, but not anything like the character from the books. The actor does a good job with the material he has, he even looks about right. Even so, there’s next to nothing left of book-Benji on screen.
Benji has a whole lot of backstory with Kevin. Their friendship goes back as far as to when they both started playing hockey. Kevin tells us he was very lonely until he met Benji, and he also tells us his biggest fear is to wake up one day and find that Benji is lost to him.
Kevin always was the player with a lot of precision and an eye for opportuities, while Benji was the one creating them through violent distractions. In many ways, Benji is just as important to the team as Kevin is. David even states how he doesn’t think the team can win without Benji. The whole dynamic between David, Benji and Kevin is missing from the screen.
Benji in the books has a dead father, three amazing sisters and his mum. He’s also got so much backbone you feel your own crumbling while reading about him. The scene where he confronts Kevin head on, is one of the most powerful scenes in the book to me, and I’ll forever miss it from the screen. It cost Benji everything to let go of Kevin, but he does so anyway. He knows what Kevin has done, and he can’t live with that.
In the book, the story of how Benji relates to the basist is a story that stands in correlation with his feelings for Kevin. I really liked how subtly it is all played out and how it symbolizes his gradual movement away from Kevin. The entire plot is taken out of the series and has been replaced by an ok, but much more generic plot, one that doesn’t really reflect Benji’s personality to the same degree at all.
They do try to portray some kind of connection between Benji and Kevin, but the scenes are too few and far in-between, and there is too much “tell” to have me feel any of it. Their friendship isn’t particulary interesting in the tv-series, and Benji taking the lead of his team after Kevin is arrested, doesn’t have nearly the same impact.
Tv-Benji doesn’t stand up for Maya in the same way, he doesn’t have his encounters with Jeanette in school or his sisters at home, he isn’t quite as violent or devoted to Kevin. He is still an okay character, but not half as interesting as his book-self.
