Like you pointed out, there isn't really any way for this story not to be upsetting. And I usually prefer the book versions of things too, but this was a really great movie and it worked really well as a movie, which is great.

And wow, the idea of Eric and Wendy never getting a chance to interact just... doesn't compute, for me. I kind of assumed they had a sort of informal and exceedingly limited take-care-of-Neal-as-much-as-we-can conspiracy going on. Also, dialing down Brian's damage? Bwuh?

And yeah, killer performances.