The transition from book to screen is rarely one charted without criticism, lamentation, or condemnation.

While certain tomes lend themselves to worthy remakes – Lord of the Rings, Pride and Prejudice, and under a skillful director, Harry Potter – others doubtless send their authors into spins of fury, as likely did the adaptation of His Dark Materials.

Finding oneself ensconced in a chair while a worthy novel is hacked to pieces by stilted dialogue, watery eyes, and the disposal of scenes that favour subtle nuance over of action/lust is one of my pet hates.

In most cases, however, one is prepared for a massacre of pages through the caustic reviews of the film critics and random pundits.

Nevertheless, in other cases, acting on the unabashed love for a book and whipped into an excited ecstasy by said reviews and punditry, one still meanders into a slight disappointment.

I’m going to be honest now, despite the likelihood that I shall be cast into the pit of eternal social damnation, alongside kitten-kickers, garlic-haters, and people who don’t “get” Monty Python: I did not enjoy Persepolis the movie.

It enthralled me not. It neither eked tears nor raised a raucous belly laugh; nor did it offer cerebral stimulation, or tweak the icy strings of my heart.

The sad part is, I loved, nay, adored the graphic novels – as well as Marjane Satrapi‘s other works – the two volumes of which powered their way into my top five favourite books shortly after page five.

The movie however seemed more a catalogue of scenes as the viewer was yanked from tragedy to humour and back to tragedy, so on and so forth.

The beauty of the tangible Persepolis lay in the scenes that tied the tragic and the humorous together: scenes of domesticity, daily life, social interaction, the nuances that the average viewer may perceive as tedious, or incomprehensible if the book has not been perused.

Therein, then, lies the problem: as the entire graphic novel cannot be rent to screen, sacrifices must be made.

Of course, that is not to say that the movie did not prove profoundly compelling in other respects: Chiara Mastroianni as the voice of the teenage and adult Marji was sublime and exactly as I imagined it would be.

Deliciously husky, petulant, and coy Mastroianni made the movie an additional audio pleasure.

Equally, the scenes in which Marji realises her misconception of Markus, and the tape-vendors, are delightfully witty, while the bombing of Tehran and Marji’s departure are as rending as in the novel.

Admittedly, I am divided in my view of Persepolis as a movie: it was by no means bad, but equally it did not do the graphic novel justice.

Perhaps when a novel is as formidable as the Persepolis volumes, it is too complex a task to adapt it in all its glory, which is why I must conclude that it is purely a worthy and enjoyable jaunt.