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I always assume that the book and the movie are going about the story entirely differently. Sometimes though, watching the movie can help you understand a very complex story (particularly helpful understanding Shakespear for instance).
Harry Potter was actually one of the first movies where they made it clear that they were going to try to follow the book as closely as possible. Few directors ever make that a goal.
I once had a class that included a well-known, but now dead director who said that bad books often make the best movies because you can take what is good about it and make it into something better visually. Good books are much harder because their complex plots and/or characters involve many threads, so it's pretty much impossible to follow the book closely.
The Princess Bride as a book sucked, IMHO, but they took everything that was good in the book and used it in the movie and then some. Made a fabulous movie.
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