Readers of The Chosen can benefit from seeing the film version of the novel. The film gives a visually detailed view of the life of Hasidic Jews, including how they dress and perform religious rituals. Although both the novel and the film version concentrate on many of the same themes, the film version differs most from the novel in terms of the significance of Reuven's hospital stay following the accident during the softball game, and the treatment of women.
The movie opens, as does the novel, with a softball game. The viewer immediately gets an insight into Hasidim (the people of the sect of Hasidism), represented by Danny Saunders' team, which has come to play the team of Reuven Malter, a Modern Orthodox Jew. The Hasidim wear long black coats, wide-brimmed hats, and prayer shawls, the fringes of which hang out of their clothes at the waists. This style of dress has remained the same since the sect was founded in eighteenth-century Europe.
However old-fashioned and backward-looking the Hasidim may appear to outsiders, they know how to play softball, and they're very good at it, too. In fact, the star player for the Hasidic team, Danny Saunders, is so good that he hits the ball at the pitcher (Reuven) with enough force to smash Reuven's glasses and send him to the hospital. Reuven and Danny might not have met had it not been for the softball game, by Reuven's own admission.
The film differs from the book in that the six-day hospital stay described in the novel is reduced to one brief hospital scene in the film. The conversations between Danny and Reuven, Reuven and his father, and the three of them that take place over six days in the book are spread throughout the movie.
