Regarding Memoirs

OK...inaccurate...more on this today
The point of the debate on first person narratives is Memoirs of a Geisha.
I downloaded this from Audible a few months ago and really liked it. For those few in this world that haven't read or listened to it the book is the story of a girl growing up as a geisha in Japan in the thirties and the war. Though it is fiction it has the ring of absolute authenticity but can include a plot that doesn't drag.
In other circumstances this would be positively the worse audiobook I've ever heard. The narrator sounds as though she had never heard of the English language until yesterday and had then decided to model her accent on a Speak-your-weight machine. Secondary characters are done in the style of a person who not only cannot act but cannot do impressions either. Nethertheless it works and I have a theory why...

The book has a preface saying something along the lines of

these memoirs were dictated to me by Nitta Sayuri as she sits in her chair drinking Japanese tea and a-yada-yada-yada

The book is set up as a story telling session.
It is set up to be two people sitting in a cosy room with one dictating in stilted English the story of her life to the other.
Additional voices would extend the audiobook beyond the realm of storytelling.
Now I was told that the film was terrible. Could this be the reason why?