Il mandolino del capitano Corelli

Ok, it's a given that you cannot make a good movie from a good book. (Unless you make it a trilogy :-) But comparing the book Corelli's Mandolin to this movie it's clear how much has to be cut to fit a screenplay. The book is very funny in places, romantic (of course), dramatic. What's left of it in the film is inexplicable romance -- as other reviewers have remarked, it's unclear why she falls in love with the italian while her betrothed is still around, and I have no idea why this was changed from the book -- and some gratuitous gunning and bombing scenes, more than in the book which derives its power from not hammering on the obvious points. Whole characters are cut: Carlo has maybe 10 seconds screen time, while in the book he has a whole story line that runs several chapters.