CriticSociety- film reviews

Review

Milk

Director

Gus Van Sant

Year

2008

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Thursday, February 26, 2009

I’ve heard people say that Milk’s greatest asset is that it doesn’t treat its hero as a heroic figure. I beg to differ. It treats him as a hero alright, because there aren’t many other angles to him.

No, the greatest asset of this fine film is that it’s fun. Or should I say entertaining, or exciting? Perhaps the three things. We’re so enthralled by this guy’s life adventures from the point in which he turns 40 and realizes that he isn’t proud of anything he has ever done, that we overlook the density of his actions. He turns his life upside down, moves to San Francisco with his partner, and makes history. How it happens, and how this guy reacts to it, is amazing, and amazingly shown, in a film that despite its repetitiveness is over much too soon and leaves us wanting more, and in the end, makes us realize that what we just saw is the portrait of a hero who never even considered himself one.

Dustin Lance Black’s script does make him that way, but subtly, by not focusing strictly on that. It tells its tale quickly, passionately, never forgetting that the man whose life we’re witnessing was so likable no one could resist him, but wasn’t that way because he wanted to but because he simply was like that. And I’m thanking the Gods on Mount Olympus for making one of our most gifted actors somewhat similar physically, because he was such an obvious choice for the role and fiercely grasped it, disappearing in it, giving it his everything, portraying a gay man like I had never seen one, so true to his nature it’s hard to believe it’s actually an actor doing the study of another man; it’s just astonishing.

The real-life story is quite something to put on film, and I’m happy that now that it’s been done (though it had before as a documentary), it’s been done so well. Harvey Milk changes his life around and is in for a wild ride: after moving to San Francisco and opening a business in the homosexual haven of Castro Street, he’s taken aback by the fact that his people are nevertheless rejected by lawmen and fellow business owners. Almost witlessly starting a campaign against such discrimination, he finds incredible support, and becomes inevitably drawn towards politics, where he achieves the eventual position of Supervisor, becoming the first openly gay man to be elected to office in the United States of America, which is no little task, or one to be forgotten.

The story chronicles Milk’s career in politics, from small to big time, while delving into his personal life as it slowly merged with his professional one until they were indistinguishable. That’s because Milk never betrayed his personality in bed or in office. He was always who he was. His personal relationships, for instance, are a tribute to his big heart: after breaking up with Scott Smith (James Franco), his partner at the time of his political beginnings, he never quits his friendship with him, and it’s clear that he’s done that younger man a lot of good; on the other hand, after he goes wild for Jack Lira (Diego Luna), a depressive youngster who’s pathologically jealous of Milk’s career, he does everything to make Jack happy for the relationship to work, and despairs when none of it comes true, even though it was never in his control.

The most important relationship that the film builds is that of Milk and fellow supervisor Dan White, the clean-cut ex-cop who’s the stereotyped homophobic but somehow seems to be constantly finding ways to relate to Milk. The film suggests closeted homosexuality, and ends up severely punishing White, as he unwillingly gives Milk the ticket to immortality. In this role, Josh Brolin proves once again why he’s one of the biggest rising stars of today. But let’s not finish this with a note for an actor that’s not Sean Penn, one of the toughest, bravest and greatest actors alive. Bravo Sean.

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Review

Doubt

Director

John Patrick Shanley

Year

2008

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Moonstruck (1987) has haunted me through the years so I just had to check out this new showcase of its scripter, John Patrick Shanley, as writer/director. He adapted his Broadway play into a film so witty and powerful in the sense of a good play—where words are all that’s needed to create maximum impact—that one can’t but applaud the effort. It is, in fact, quite a knockout even though its plot revolves around something inconclusive and largely unfounded, hence the title. But isn’t that, doubt, which sometimes drives the biggest predicaments in life? Here’s a story of such a case, and how it affects many lives for better or worse. And it all happens between four people…

I don’t know whether this is based on fact or not, but the film is dedicated to the “real” Sister James, a nun I’ve heard Shanley met as a youngster, who probably told him her story. Sister James is played here by Amy Adams, that sweetest of creatures, perfect as a candid nun who can’t bear to see evil and looks elsewhere as soon as she gets the chance. In 1964, facing the possibility of her priest abusing a boy in the school attached to his church, Sister James is obliged to talk about it with her superior, the school’s Principal, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep), as if to clear her conscience, though the possibility of defaming the father strikes her later as a greater sin.

Streep plays a peculiar character here, also a merit of Shanley’s brave writing. She’s unlikable in general, but particularly at first, when introduced as a strict figure of discipline quite feared by the kids she rules with a firm hand. One can only guess she’s the villain while Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), that sympathetic fat fellow, is the hero, or perhaps the victim of Sister Aloysius’s bitterness. Nothing farther from the truth. Though she might not have the best means to her end, she’s pure good intentions, and protecting the children is her top priority. That’s why, when she suspects something strange in Father Flynn, thanks to Sister James’s conjectures, she declares war against him.

What’s true, though? We don’t know. Yet, as far as we’re concerned, doubt isn’t strong enough to support a lie, one way or the other, and that’s why this becomes a monumental struggle: Sister Aloysius can’t sustain her suspicions if untrue, while Father Flynn can’t defend himself, if true. The hierarchy of the church, which to my eyes is highly questioned here (well done!), is also an impediment for truth: men rule, and a nun’s suspicion of sexual abuse can become meaningless if a priest such as Father Flynn is well regarded by, let’s say, the bishop; it might even mean the nun’s excommunication.

That’s where Sister Aloysius rises as a hero. She goes well beyond her vows and beliefs in order to stop whom she believes to be a hunter. In the process, we learn a little from her past and realize that she’s had quite a bit of grief and bad experiences to know about the world’s horror. She might be bitter as a result, but she’s sharp yet and loving inside, and in full use of her conscience. She’s a believer who cannot conceive the abuse of religious power. She herself is powerless, and for once decides to surpass the established barriers to have justice’s way. Needless to say, Streep excels in this character that keeps us in stitches as she reveals herself little by little in favor of truth, well fearing that she might be wrong, though never, at least while the battle lasts, letting that show.

Hoffman is outstanding as well, and that is also a tribute to the writer since the character is so meaty. We constantly believe in his innocence and refuse, the same as Sister James, to consider the opposite. We’re content with the innocent explanations that he offers and despise Sister Aloysius for pushing still. Yet, the very chance of any truth in her suspicions and the way Hoffman handles this extraordinary possibility for a priest who otherwise seemed to be in peace is mesmerizing. Great work there, as expected from Hoffman, one of today’s best.

The final piece of this masterful ensemble is Viola Davis, unforgettable as the mother of the child that Father Flynn is suspected of molesting. I must say that her only scene left me unsatisfied, as her motivations weren’t altogether clear and her reactions were too cryptic. Her performance, as good as any, is not to be faulted—I just found this to be a weak link of Shanley’s script, though not in respect of dialogue or character nuance.

This film is sure to leave the viewer wondering about truth, trust, and their own moral issues and ethics. It’s sure to leave an aftertaste, good or bad, but long-lasting. Doubt it not: this is a great film.

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Review

Slumdog Millionaire

Director

Danny Boyle

Year

2008

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Cheating in a game show in Mumbai ain’t easy to pull off because torturers might push the cheat out of you soon enough. That’s the awful truth Jamal (Dev Patel) learns soon after his outstanding run in India’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”, which consists of picking one of four answer for each of a bunch of random questions. As it turns out, he’s not a cheater, only a lucky guy who knew each answer because it had something to do with an episode of his life. As he retells his story, we learn two things: that this guy sort of deserves to become a millionaire and that even if he was a cheater, he wouldn’t have confessed… Because such torture is meaningless after all that he’s endured.

The game is just a gimmick to go back and retell his life story and that of countless kids in Bombay (later Mumbai) who were orphaned during the Hindu-Muslim riots and forced to manage their own existences in the slums, constantly susceptible to abuse by exploiters. The kind-heartedness and joy of Jamal is contrasted by the tough personality of his brother Salim, an opportunistic rascal who rarely encounters a moral dilemma to stop him. The young actors who play Jamal, Salim and the other kids are mesmerizing at every turn.

After some humorous adventures of the two brothers who, despite their differences, had a good relationship, they end up in the protection of Maman (Ankur Vikal), a mysterious man who seems to be interested in the children’s welfare and is later revealed to be part of a network of child beggars among other things, who wants to recruit them. There, Jamal meets Latika, a girl who haunts him for the rest of his life.

Getting into detail would get even more spoilery, so suffice it to say that the intricacies of the children’s destiny is a delicious story full of drama and poignancy, as well as tragedy. The strongest antagonist of Simon Beautoy’s screenplay (based on the novel “Q&A” by Vikas Swarup) is never a man or a mafia or even crime itself, but the wounds in the children’s psyches, made permanent by the lack of guidance and love during their most vulnerable times.

I found Jamal’s story heartbreaking never because of what happened to him, but because of what happens in the world constantly, all around us. If Slumdog Millionaire does any good, it’s raising awareness towards this harsh reality; to that effect, I hope some people overlook the love story and realize the relevant subject matter that’s touched upon.

However, the presentation is never gloomy or heart-wrenching, but on the contrary, bright and optimistic, rather a tribute to human resiliency, if somewhat diminishing the impact of the tale. Colorfully photographed by Anthony Dod Mantle and edited in fast pace by Chris Dickens, the piece never stops for a moment, accompanied by the dynamic music of A.R. Rahman and an array of powerful songs. During the framing scenes of Jamal either answering questions or retelling how he knew the answers, another drama rises: will he win, in the end?

Now, even though the game show scenes are elegantly presented as tense and crucial, I had an issue with the game becoming gradually irrelevant, because even though it serves its purpose of triggering the flashbacks, it is, after all, the main structural plot of the story. The resolution left me unsatisfied because, regardless of the fact that money ends up being the least important of retributions for Jamal, I couldn’t understand his attitude towards it.

Also, as past and present finally came together, I lost connection with the awesome character of Jamal’s brother Salim (Madhur Mittal), and couldn’t grasp his final motivations either. I felt betrayed as the ending went for the crowd-pleasing, and realized that I never really rooted for the modern Jamal or Salim; maybe just a little bit for the lovely Latika (Freida Pinto), who haunted me as much as Jamal with her self-destructive existence I can only hope she’ll learn to control… for her sake and Jamal’s.

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Review

Frost/Nixon

Director

Ron Howard

Year

2008

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Though I know my share of history, I won’t pretend that I had heard much about the David Frost interviews to fallen American President Richard Nixon, and still, I envy those who know nothing of them and go to see this movie. As a piece of fictionalized history, it’s every bit as exciting as the original fact, as it must have been for those who lived it (years before I was born, by the way), but for very different reasons: in real life, it must have been simply jaw-dropping to see President Nixon put in words what everyone wanted to hear from him; on film, it’s as good to see how this came to be.

Given his historical relevance, President Nixon is one of the most memorable former leaders. I find it highly ironic that everything he always wanted to avoid was in fact what gave him celebrity. Had he continued his presidency, he probably would’ve gone into history books as a liar and a failure, but instead, by making the capital mistakes that he did, he went on to become the liar and failure that had to admit that he was by quitting the post that few people don’t desire. (To me, the greatest such example is that of King Henry VIII, who turned country and religion upside down for the sake of conceiving a male heir, failed to do so, and through his famous attempts became all the more perpetual than he probably could through an heir—the most famous king of England, no less.)

But, of course, what we puny humans seek is not notoriety but notability, and President Nixon had good reason to feel like the greatest loser in the world, and was, to the eyes of most people. It’s relevant to mention that presidents and such figures of high stature are rarely what they seem: the fool often seems smart, the smart, fool, and so forth. Nixon was no fool; bumbling though he appeared, dull, sweaty and awkward, he was brilliant.

It is through this brilliance that one of the greatest writers of today, Peter Morgan, that British playwright who has so successfully transformed his work from interesting to vital in both stage and silver screen, depicts the big man after his glorious years, bored and frustrated in his San Clemente, California, estate, yearning to get back in the game, seeking the opportunity to redeem himself. The play on his intentions, whether what he really wanted was to apologize to the world, to bring himself some dignity rather than the now-impossible glory, is what makes this script, adapted from Morgan’s successful play, so intriguing.

To give that character such spotlight, the writer focuses on the other half of the interview, David Frost, played by one of Morgan’s favorite actors, Michael Sheen, who caricaturizes the showbiz man as a superfluous money-hungry humanizer, making his arc such that he gains maturity and seriousness while seeking what he once considered a win-win bid: an interview to Richard Nixon. Counseled by his famous media agent, Swifty Lazar (Toby Jones), Nixon accepts this interview, not only because Frost is willing to pay the ex president the unheard of amount of six hundred thousand dollars, but because he’ll probably do nothing but smile, ask cordial questions, and give Nixon enough space to talk to the people in any way he chooses.

As it turns out, each man underestimates his rival. Frost hires a couple of experts (played by Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt) to help him out, and they make him realize that not only isn’t Nixon an unworthy opponent, but that allowing him to take over the interview can ruin Frost’s career; Nixon, on the other hand, seems unprepared for real tough questions—not because he can’t find a proper answer, but because sometimes they make him wonder whether he should answer honestly at last.

Naturally, the film plays with fact and adds some scenes that are sometimes improbable or simply unbelievable, but which strengthen the story and are, for that, quite admissible. I just had a little problem with the one involving a certain scene-long phone call late at night; I felt it didn’t bring the characters anything extra and only helped give one of them an added motivation that I would’ve liked him to find in himself instead.

This is Ron Howard’s greatest film to date which, given his filmography, is not a superfluous statement (though I’ve never been a fan of his films until now). I just loved how he handled both characters, how he made them so likable, how he played their interaction, how he turned their encounters into something as stressing as some of the best fights in Raging Bull (1980). Much of this we owe also to editors Dan Hanley and Mike Hill and to cinematographer Salvatore Totino. Outstanding work through and through.

Frank Langella and Michael Sheen reprised the roles they originated on the London stage and did it so spontaneously one can’t hardly believe, one, that they’ve done it before, and two, that they’re not the people they’re playing. I must confess now, after seeing Langella’s work, that as good as Anthony Hopkins’s work was in Nixon (1995), this guy convinced me even more (I disgust myself with such an unfair comparison, they were playing different stages of Nixon’s life and Hopkins was rabidly passionate in his character, but I can’t help it, they play the same guy after all, so, I apologize); Sheen is just as good though his character doesn’t seem to be as demanding… or is it that he does it so naturally? If I were Peter Morgan, I would also cast him in every one of my works.

The supporting cast is perfection, but there is one I want to pinpoint: Kevin Bacon, as former Marine turned Nixon’s post-presidency chief of staff Jack Brennan, is excellent; his tingling eyes show true admiration and love for his boss, which not only enriches his own character, but aides that of Nixon immeasurably, as it illustrates the passion that good ol’ Dick emanated to those around him.

Wait, I have to mention someone else: Rebecca Hall, who had already captivated me in Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), did it even more here, as Frost’s girlfriend; she’s the loveliest creature in the movies this year, and, as far as we have seen of her, a fine actress.

Frost/Nixon is vibrant cinema; as vibrant, in fact, as history.

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Review

Revolutionary Road

Director

Sam Mendes

Year

2008

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Richard Yates’s classic novel of hell as interpreted in the story of a young American suburban couple has been adapted by Justin Haythe into a worthy and respectable screenplay that keeps the original values and the clear portrayal of angst and desperation in a typical household where much more goes on than meets the eye. The result is a deep next-door tragedy, it’s amazing, it’s one of those pieces that make you wonder if anyone is happy at all in this world, and how much we hide and how little we deal with it.

Sam Mendes’s American Beauty (1999) was a masterful dark comedy about suburban life, but this is quite a different take; there’s nothing funny about Revolutionary Road except for a couple of witty remarks in the midst of the storming conversations and discussions that abound in the tumultuous script, which is talky, to be sure, but poignant.

The story, set in the 1950s, is about a Connecticut married couple with two children who struggle to deal, he with his excruciatingly meaningless job and she with her dead-end housewife existence. Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet play this couple and start discussing from the third scene on, but it’s thankfully not the kind of movie that’s about two people tearing each other apart for the hell of it—these two have love going on, hopes and dreams, and face countless barriers and tumbles. When they fight, they mean it, but when they hope, they live! How their dreams are constructed and how reality falls upon them is outstandingly achieved, and it’s mostly through conversation, which is even more surprising.

And though it’s talky, it’s never theatrical. The interaction of Frank and April Wheeler is usually explosive, easily surpassing the four walls inside which they take place. Winslet and DiCaprio are absolutely superb in their heartfelt performances. Given the nature of her character, though, she is the standout of the two. Yet, there is a character that shakes the story unexpectedly right in the middle which, expertly played by Michael Shannon, is a scene-stealer. Kathy Bates, as a rather nosy neighbor (and the aforementioned character’s mother), is also quite good.

The setting is a perfectly reproduced suburbia which rather emphasizes the dreadful monotony and claustrophobia of lives designed to produce an image of comfortable peace that actually create quite the opposite inside. The story, which won Yates a Pulitzer Prize, dared defy the picture-perfect peace of such homes. What’s the point, asked someone to me. To explain countless tragedies, I replied.

Let me finish with a little spoiler-ridden analysis of the character of April Wheeler. I fell in love with this character. She dreams of something completely different for her but is at the same time consciously stuck in her own paradigms. To escape, she defies conventionalism, but instead of denouncing it she adapts it to her own limitations. To flee her home, she must convince her husband of going to Paris, based on a comment he once made. It’s crazy, but he goes for it. Once he starts questioning the idea, she conforms, though rebellion grows inside of her, as something else, a baby, also grows in her womb. The outburst is finally fatal and self-destructive, but haunting enough to affect, for instance, the lives of neighbors Shep and Milly Campbell (David Harbour and Kathryn Hahn). April is thus a rebel who fights for a cause in spite of herself and never acknowledging it. To her, she’s a victim of bad luck and close-mindedness, but in actuality she’s as guilty as chance. Aren’t we all. But she rebelled. Few of us do.

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Review

The Bucket List

Director

Rob Reiner

Year

2007

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Sunday, February 08, 2009

I enrolled in an extraordinary coaching program at work that I’m very grateful for. As one of the final tasks, my coach requested that I write an obituary for myself. Quite the self-loathing prick at times, I discovered it was great to have found so clearly that I in fact appreciate and love myself continuously but am sometimes such a cynic that I can’t admit it. The coach suggested that I see The Bucket List, a recent film I had missed, as it talks about closure, life enjoyment, and memorable obituaries.

The result is exactly what I expected, based on the comments I heard back then: two reliable first-rate actors wrestle with a strictly feel-good crowd-pleasing limited script that despite its shortcomings ends up capturing the worst of cynics after all; a sufficiently good job, in all, let’s say, but never above average. Still, I’ll find it really hard to pan the output; it would feel rather abusive, don’t know why. I’ll be as objective as I possibly can.

Justin Zackham’s screenplay does what scripts are not supposed to do: facilitate everything for the characters to help them achieve their pursuits. If they find an obstacle, it’s trivial and easily overcome. Sometimes it’s a relief, though, to just cut to the chase and see what’s the point. Drama is sacrificed for the sake of heartwarming, and that’s why being objective is hard in this case, because the heart interferes and makes things subjective (it can be discussed, though, that nothing is objective in a critic’s opinion, though, because he’s using his point of view at all times, but that’s a different subject which I also, curiously, discussed lengthily with my coach).

Two old men are near death: mechanic Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman, who also narrates, what a shocker!) and tycoon Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson). Sharing a room, they get to know each other and inevitably bond during their illnesses. When they find out they’re dying, Carter starts working on a list of things to do before he “kicks the bucket”. Edward proposes they go wild with that list and make their wildest dreams come true, because money is not an object (thanks to the writer, of course). This sets off the motions for an around-the-world adventure that leads, after all is said and done, and quite predictably, to the men’s achievement of a happy ending for their lives, which they improve considerably during their last stage.

It’s very easy to sit through The Bucket List because it’s so simple, humorous, and starring two charming and fantastic actors, though Nicholson is hammy as hell like he doesn’t give a darn, which he has very good reasons to, by the way, but it’s still unjustifiable. Their globetrotting adventures aren’t nearly as exciting or as funny as they could be, but good enough to make the points they want to make. The rest is neatly wrapped up and the list plays quite an important role.

I thanked my coach for the recommendation; though I’ve seen countless films, I have rarely seen one so effective in the specific point of making most of life at all times as this one does. Ironic, right?, for a film that I’m criticizing in a rather murky light. I need to be objective, but I can’t deny the aftertaste is awesome.

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Review

Love in the Time of Cholera

Director

Mike Newell

Year

2007

Rating

Reviewed by

Gon Curiel a.k.a. Groucho

Review date

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Though the magic realism in Gabriel García Márquez’s “El Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera” is not as absolute as that in his definitive masterpiece, “Cien Años de Soledad” (“A Hundred Years of Solitude”), it is still quite a daring enterprise to adapt it to the screen. This novel about obsessive lifelong love is so feelings-ridden that sometimes the action can’t even be put into mental images. Making it visual would irreparably constrain the magic in a few frames, but I can’t deny the output deserved the best of my curiosities. It was rather wicked though, this curiosity, because it’s sort of ill-fated anyway to attempt to adapt such a thing to the screen, but who knows! Wyler’s Wuthering Heights (1939) is a gem in itself so anything is possible.

The result is quite the romantic film though much of the wit, humor and palpable emotion of the written work are gone. It’s like a different take on the same story, let’s stay. Luckily, the essence is still present: Young Florentino Ariza (Unax Ugalde) glances at lovely Fermina Daza (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) and a cataclysm occurs in his life, one that plagues him until his last days, so many decades later. The melancholy boy sets to romance the girl but she’s from a fine family and her father would never allow such a thing. After she settles down and marries another man, prestigious Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt), Florentino (now played by Javier Bardem) vows eternal fidelity to this woman and in a way keeps his promise.

All this is fine and good but as I said, the sense of humor is mostly lost and that’s the film’s main problem. Romance is the scope here but I didn’t find that to be so in the novel. Florentino Ariza is a manic obsessive but that doesn’t matter, it’s love that drives him, and so a romantic approach is appropriate, yet, the way events turn during his “wait” is handled flatly here. Be warned that what I’m about to say is a mild spoiler: As Florentino struggles to keep his mind off Fermina, he’s practically raped by an anonymous woman in a boat, and finds in sex the subtlest and most effective escapism. What he does from then on is to screw every woman that crosses his path and chronicle them specifically as a reminder of his self-destructive pastime that deliberately turns his existence into a non-existence as none of his peccadilloes is a hundredth of what it would be to be with Fermina, and he convinces himself of this.

The script screws this, first, by introducing Florentino as an old man with a young lady in his bed before it’s revealed that he has sworn eternal fidelity to Fermina. This is problematic because, in the novel, we get to know this old man’s vow without further explanation and wonder how he could have kept such a promise for a lifetime and still live an interesting existence in celibacy, particularly for a story that’s infested with romanticism from the start. Later on, as we find out the way Florentino has passed the years, we understand that his vow was kept, if only spiritually, and quite believe his words when he proudly announces, in his old age, that he has succeeded. The affairs, varied and contrasting, are either funny or sad or lovely, which the film loses as it portrays them as either lifeless or haunting. The labyrinthine chronology of García Márquez’s account is also lost in translation, but that is a smart decision to avoid intricacies that could have marred the story on film.

Forgetting about the novel for a while, what I see is a romantic script (by Ronald Harwood, who’s clearly passionate about the source) whose lead is a cynic, a maniac and a hypocrite. I can’t quite see how we’re supposed to believe there’s any love in this man’s feelings towards Fermina. The one saving grace is the brilliant performance of Javier Bardem (as the older Florentino, though Unax Ugalde, as the younger one, is as good), who transmits pain, struggle and undying love. I don’t know what the film would do without him, because it’s presented as such a romantic piece, with loving cinematography by Alfonso Beato and a dreamy score by Antonio Pinto, that it would’ve fallen to pieces without a lead character that’s both believable and infectious.

As for the female lead, Giovanna Mezzogiorno doesn’t always look like the kind of girl one would fall for in such an absolute way, but that’s one of the things that narrowing this story down inevitably brought; otherwise, she’s fine, especially as her character gets older. I hear John Leguizamo wasn’t exactly everyone’s favorite choice as Fermina’s father, but I consider his performance perfection: this is a despotic new rich Latin American man who wants his daughter to relate only to what he considers the finest; I’ve seen enough of such bastards in my time and I think he just nailed it. As Fermina’s sensuous cousin Hildebranda, Catalina Sandino Moreno steals every scene, as does Fernanda Montenegro as Florentino’s loving mother.

Good one, bringing this to the big screen; if anything, it helps spread the love for one of the greatest tales of Latin American literature, and that’s a love that many of us have found undying and worth a vow of eternal fidelity.

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