Dvd
Love in the Time of Cholera
Starring Javier Bardem, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Benjamin Bratt, Gina Bernard Forbes, Liev Schreiber, Marcela Mar
Directed by Mike Newell ('Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire', 'Four Weddings and a Funeral')
Written by Ronald Harwood (based on the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
Romance, Adaptation, Drama | 2hr 18mins | Rated (M) | contains sex scenes & offensive language | Origin: USA | Official Site »
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Flicks review
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2
It really does defy belief how someone could take a gorgeous love story and turn it into a farce of a film. The result here is laughable, but I do not imagine that this is what the director had in mind.
The film spans a fifty year period set in an unnamed Caribbean port during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Florentino Ariza (Javier Bardem) marinates in his unrequited love for Fermina Urbino (Giovanna Mezzogorno) throughout the course of the film but she steadfastly rejects him by marrying the dashing Dr Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt). This idea of a love suspended between times or a love without time limits is a prominent theme of the novel – but is somewhat lost in the haze of generational confusion that permeates the film.
While in the novel Florentino’s longing and undying love for Fermina is endearing, in the film it becomes stalker-like and in modern times a restraining order would be just around the corner. His desperation becomes painful to watch, and his conquests of random women in an attempt to ease his sorrow do nothing to help the viewer to empathise with him. Javier Bardem is a skilled and complex actor, as evidenced in his work in Before Nights Falls and No Country for Old Men, but he fails to showcase his skills in this production with an unwavering limp backbone.
The casting director made a glaring blunder with the central female lead, as the young Fermina is too old and the old Fermina looks too young. The appalling attempts at ageing make-up, the bad wigs, facial hair and ill fitting garments make for an art department disaster.
It seems as though director Mike Newell was unable to harness the poetic and playful nature of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel. The subtleties and humor of the original work seem to have eluded him, and instead he has attempted to portray an epic and worthy love story without the passion. Perhaps the only saving graces (if any) were the languorous camera work drifting over the lush Columbian scenery and the snappy soundtrack provided by Shakira.
While the novel is layered, detailed and sumptuous in its narrative style and in its evocations of the heart, the film falls well short of any such depth, and left me feeling like I has witnessed nothing more than a very expensive high school drama production. It was not a case of eternal love examined, but rather of an eternal bore endured.
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The people's reviews
3 reviews
Press Reviews
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Chicago Sun-Times [Roger Ebert]
1
1/2 Small wonder that One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's best novel, has never been filmed. Watching "Love in the Time of Cholera," based on another of his great works, made me wonder if he is even translatable into cinema. Gabo's work may really live only there on the page, with his lighthearted badinage between the erotic and the absurd, the tragic and the magical. If you extract the story without the language, you are left with dust and bones but no beating heart.
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Christchurch Press [Margaret Agnew]
3
1/2 A complex novel is remade as a superficial historic romance, with no feelings of love or loss evident anywhere. Bardem and Mezzogiorno do their best to generate heat but lack any spark. Fans of the book prepare to be disappointed.
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FilmThreat.com [USA]
2
Is love a disease, as Marquez possibly wanted us to believe? Maybe, but in the case of this adaptation, it’s more of a laughing sickness.
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NZ Herald [Francesca Rudkin]
3
Lovely, but lacks the poetry and magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' book.
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Stuff.co.nz [Tracey Bond]
3
A quirky, charming unconventional love story.
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The Hollwood Reporter
Shot on location in vibrant Cartagena, the film's strong suit is aesthetic. Cinematographer Alfonso Beato, designer Wolf Kroeger and costume designer Marit Allen evoke aged exotic locales, rugged rural settings and dimly lit period interiors. A closing, aerial image has a breathtaking, spiritual beauty.
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Variety [USA]
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's much-adored "Love in the Time of Cholera" has been given a translation by helmer Mike Newell that's both too literal and too thorough. Despite a magnificent performance by Javier Bardem, the film not only falls short of the novel's magic, but fails to generate much of its own. Fans of the author, perhaps enlisted through the book's enshrinement in Oprah's Book Club, will be seduced. But serious filmgoers -- "Love's" target aud -- will be neither seduced nor amused, making for an arduous B.O. trek on the upscale specialized circuit.
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