Love in the Time of Cholera

For devotees of Gabriel García Márquez this unprofessional adaptation of his sweepingly romantic novel 'El amor en los tiempos del cólera' will sadly disappoint. Ronald Harwood's screenplay is a patchwork quilt that attempts to tell the story of longing for love in the manner of a novella/travelogue and despite the presence of some very fine actors in the key roles, director Mike Newell forgets to grasp the atmosphere that makes the original novel ethereal.

Young Florentino Ariza (Unax Ugalde) is a poor dreamer working as a telegraph operator and sees and falls in love with young Fermina Daza (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), daughter of a wealthy mule trader Lorenzo Daza (John Leguizamo) who upon hearing of the infatuation whisks Fermina away as Florentino pledges undying love and fidelity to Fermina. Florentino's mother Tránsito (Fernanda Montenegro), his uncle Leo (Hector Elizondo), and his friend Lotario Thugut (Liev Schreiber) comfort him and try to encourage his mating with another woman, but as Florentino matures (now Javier Bardem) even the long list of sexual encounters cannot turn his mind away from Fermina. Fermina marries Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt), travels widely, has his child and ultimately discovers her husband's infidelity. Florentino inherits his Uncle's shipping wealth, becoming one of the wealthy class that would have made him an eligible suitor for Fermina when he originally met her. But time changes everything except Florentino's commitment to Fermina and after the death of Dr. Urbino, he has the chance to realize his long awaited dream of being with the now 70+ year old lover.

The story spans fifty years in an unnamed city in Columbia (here Cartagena) and across the beauty of both South America and Europe. All of the basic elements are in place: the important missing piece is the magic of Gabriel García Márquez's prose. The huge cast is wasted on a script that is less than pedestrian: Javier Bardem tries to make Florentino a credible sympathetic character but is stuck in the mud of his lines; the brilliant Fernanda Montenegro attempts to paste together the pared down role of Florentino's mother; an unremarkable Giovanna Mezzogiorno fails to make Fermina worthy of Florentino's devotion; John Leguizamo is grossly and embarrassingly miscast; fine actors such as Unax Ugalde, Liev Schrieber, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Ana Claudia Talancón, Hector Elizondo and others are little more than cardboard caricatures of the original creations.

One wonders how Newell and Harwood could have strayed so far from the mark of the potential that this beautiful novel promised as a cinematic transition. But what resulted from their collaboration is an overlong, boring, and sloppy version of the original story. Sad to see fine actors wasted in this film. Grady Harp

I think it is possible to make a film that has this book's richnesses, story, metaphors and style. But it would have to depart as much from ordinary Masterpiece TeeVee as this cleaves to it.

The book, if you do not know it, relies on an already deep tradition of Spanish-speaking writers that brings metaphor to life by mixing illusion and reality. This is a third generation writer in this tradition, and he counts on you knowing the previous generations so that you can appreciate the subtle craft in placing both in a "reality."

The centerpiece of course is how to fabricate a perfect love, suspend it in earnest imagination and make it real through writing. That last bit is the third generation bit, the idea that the writing of illusion makes it real. Students of narrative folding as a device to engage will recognize this trick as one designed to put the reader in the story. Everyone in the story is a "reader" of what Florentino writes. His passion in writing is immediately accessible to every other woman he meets and allows him to enter 622 of them.

That number of course is the number of menstrual cycles he waits for his love while engaged in maintaining the passion. This links to one of the two main metaphors, also partly illusory: the boats on the river. The other metaphor is love as a disease and the triangle established by the doctor dedicated to eradicate it. The structure is rather clinical, made attractive by the same passion in its writer as the writer character has. It matters that it is written in Spanish, a language that allows a connected flow of phrases and a tradition that assumes romantic fever.

I think Ruiz could have done this.

Newell has no idea what to do with this, and is left with simply trying lush shots and reading passionate text.

Here's an indication of his general ignorance: for practical commercial reasons the language must be English. But instead of having his characters speak English naturally and with passion, he has them adopt an accent which we will recognize as Hispanic speaking English as a second language. This is characterized by hypervigilance to the consonants separating words where the primary language centers of the brain are telling the speaker that they should flow with sonances. An astute listener (and if you are not, you do not deserve to have passion in reading) will know people with this, whose words flow in their mind, but become discrete pebbles in the mouth, breaking the flow of liquid life this whole story exploits.

Here's an indication of his cinematic ignorance: It matters what is shown, how and in what way, for how long and in what order. He films this as if every element that plays a role in the plot deserves equal weight. Thus, if we have a telegraph key that does something, or a boat people are on, or a ladder that slips, why we see those. All exist with equal weight. All are shown with the same reality and perspective. All have the same frame. But this manner of narrative is all about color and weight, all about the rhythms of love in reality. Some things should be sharp, magnetic, bright. Others foggy or not even touched. Some seemingly full and sensual but allowed to be discovered not so in a way that never informs the next lust.

Its all about rivers and inconsistent flows. All the sex is denoted by displayed breasts. This again is a commercial necessity, but the material is vaginal in focus. Such intense mysteries must always be. All of the mechanics of the story begin and end there, even in mention of the food.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Quick, before the general release on Friday change the silent movie line back to "My God, this is longer than sorrow". What did she mumble instead, was it "interminable"? Why was that wonderful line changed?

I so loved the book, I cannot get an unbiased grip on the movie. My mind elaborated it favorably but with simultaneous disappointment over deviations like the "sorrow" line. "Forever" worked better in the book as the boat was ordered to return upstream. I do wish it had closed with the "ripple" video that is on the internet.

The film touched too many threads while missing the book's soul, like trying to read Fermina's heart on her tongue. Maybe it isn't possible for a movie to do justice to any masterpiece but Florentino's long-standing relationships with the widows are as important as the "body count".

Young Fermina was too old, as was America. I would have cast a 15-year-old as the young Fermina and have had her reappear as America with died hair or similar artifice. I cannot forgive the script for ignoring the perversion and her suicide. I would have rather America had been entirely written out.

Bardem was the perfect Florentino. Fernanda Montenegro and Hector Elizondo gave terrific performances. Marcela Mar is such a heart-throb I nearly forgive her for being twice her age. Cartagena was underplayed. The Shakira soundtrack was ideal.

I'll reluctantly recommend the movie but won't shake peoples' shoulders as I do when I tell them that they must read the book.

The screenplay writer took much pains to try and conserve the essential meaning behind Garcia Marquez's writing, but failed to capture the sentiment behind each scene. Another disappointment was directors interpretation of Dr. Urbino Juvenal character, played by Benjamin Bratt. He seems like a soulless social clown who does not know anything about his surroundings or of the social society of which he is apart of. The director's portrayal of Ariza and Daza's relationship as one of a rekindled romance during the latter part of the film, is incorrect as i believe that Marquez' intention was to show that two characters towards the end of their lives who had finally found a connection because they had suffered similar circumstances that had left both characters empty. Although it is true that most novels fail to capture the meanings behind such sentiment, this was at most a mediocre attempt. Out of a possible 10 i have to give it a 4, only because a writer as masterful as Marquez should not be misinterpreted in this way.

This was a vulgar and empty film. There was no content, only "emotions," for most of it, and very flat characters. It was exploitative in the extreme, so much so that emotional intensity the film was striving for ended up seeming a bit like a joke, and had no actual pull.

If you take away all of the psychology from characters and reduce them to "basic emotions" such as love, pain, sadness, fear, etc., but those emotions are not motivated by the story, then what you have is an empty spectacle, a bit like a live show at Disneyland. Not to mention the painful and unintentional mix of gritty realism and artifice, such as characters aging at different rates, having glued on mustaches that look like they're going to fall off, having an old head and a young body in a nude shot, or one character having a New York accent while the rest have Spanish accents (why wasn't the film in Spanish to begin with)?

Lots of gratuitous titties, done in an offensive way. And anachronisms such as the use of the word f**k in 1890, as in "your father f**ked everything in sight!" Ridiculous. In its favor the film has nice cinematography and some good costumes, and I think some of the actors made a valiant effort, but I still have to give it a 1 for being so condescending to its audience and for ruining the Marquez novel.