I felt like poisoning a monk.
— Umberto Eco, on why he wrote The Name of the Rose

With his bestselling book, Umberto Eco poisoned enough monks to keep both heaven and hell busy awhile. Director Jean-Jacques Annaud (Quest for Fire) kills them all again in his film adaptation of The Name of the Rose.

Where the novel was a satisfying and complex mystery that inspired the intellect, the film is a satisfying and complex mystery that inspires indigestion.

Annaud had sense enough to keep most of the plot — and even manages to create much of the mood — of the original, but those who’ve read Eco’s work know his concerns went beyond plot and mood. The novel was as much a treatise on the history of the Church and the philosophies of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Bacon as it was a homicidal thriller. A rich and multi-layered piece of pop entertainment, it was spared from didactical oblivion by its convincing portrait of life in the intriguing 14th century Italian abbey that served as the story’s cornerstone....