The film of the day is Clan of the Cave Bear. One and a half stars. It wasn't actively bad, but it wasn't at all good, either.
It inherited most of what didn't make the book very good, and added to it that which tends to make movie adaptations of thick books not very good.
It was interesting and amusing that the script and the director "played it straight", with the People "speaking" mostly in gestures. They did leave in the two things I do remember from the book, from when I read it many years ago, that Alya could intuitively grasp the concept of "number", and that the "unusual" shape of her shoulders gifted her with the ability to use a sling.
I'm sure that there really are amazing and breathtaking and tearjerking true stories key to the rise of humanity and about the time when there were two human species. However, Clan of the Cave Bear is not amazing, is not breathtaking, and not tearjerking. Neither the book, nor the movie.
