It is nearly impossible to achieve complete fidelity when adapting a text to film because of technical differences between the media, also known as the specificity of the medium. Literature by nature is somewhat resistant to being filmed, simply because text "tells" while film must "show." Each medium, however, also has elements that become advantageous when depicting a story. Text allows the reader to create his own visual interpretation mentally and fill in the details that are left out on his own. Film is more straightforward in its portrayal but has the ability to visually depict what may not be possible to describe in words. Literature utilizes a wide variety of linguistic conventions such as sentence structure, narrative form, language emphasis, and breaks in order to entice its audience and support its message, whereas, film is able to utilize lenses, framing, cutting, angles, visual effects, and sound to create very specific results. A filmmaker must understand the concepts being communicated in the original work as well as how the sign system of the medium signifies them, and he must then find a way to communicate those same ideas within a completely different system of signs.

One specific challenge of film adaptation is determining the narrative perspective that will be used to tell the story. The type of narration used in the original work usually plays a role in this decision; however, certain perspectives used in textual narratives can be difficult to portray visually. While one type of narrative perspective may work well for a textual novel, it may be difficult to portray or understand as a method of filmic storytelling.

Another constraint that can become a challenge for adaptative filmmakers is the depiction of time. Whereas written language has the ability to span years of time in one sentence, film traditionally depicts real-time action and must fit time constraints. As a result, filmmakers are often forced to cut out large sections from the stories they are adapting. Atom Egoyan's filmic version of Banks' novel deals with this challenge quite well and actually depicts a wider span of time than the book, portraying life in the town before the accident as well as life for the lawyer, Mitchell Stephens, two years after his attempted lawsuit.

One major aspect of film, which can be both an asset and a constraint, is the need to visually show emotion. This is a crucial issue in film adaptation because while a textual narrative is able to tell and describe in words how a person is feeling, filmmakers must be able to show it in a way that is apparent, yet not overly obvious, to their audiences. In many cases voiceovers are used by directors when it is not possible or appropriate to visually demonstrate a character's thoughts or feelings. Showing emotion of course also becomes a matter of choosing strong actors to portray it, which is yet another aspect of filmmaking that remains irrelevant to written literature, with the exceptions of plays. In a textual story, the reader becomes the actor and is therefore responsible for interpreting emotions that are not explicitly mentioned.

Fidelity

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