Love in the Time of Cholera

There's no reason an Englishman shouldn't take on a landmark in Latin American literature. Four Weddings and a Funeral, after all, proves Mike Newell has a feel for romance. Adapted by The Pianist's Ronald Harwood, Love in the Time of Cholera is an epic vision of true love. For all the talent involved, however, this lush realization of the Gabriel Garc?a M?rquez novel never takes flight. Newell begins with a death before backtracking 50 year to the late-1800s, with Florentino (Unax Ugalde), a poetry-writing telegraph operator living in an unnamed city (the movie was filmed in Cartagena, Columbia) who spots the graceful Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) while making his rounds, and that's it–he's in love. While Florentino's mother (Central Station's Fernanda Montenegro) encourages the courtship, Fermina's father (John Leguizamo in over-the-top mode) forbids it. Years pass, and the well-born Dr. Urbino (Benjamin Bratt) treats Fermina for a case of cholera. Then, Urbino proposes. Fermina accepts. A distraught Florentino (now played by Javier Bardem) decides to wait. With the help of his uncle (a sprightly Hector Elizondo), he amasses wealth of his own. All the while, he drifts from woman to woman. After five decades of waiting, he gets a second chance to win Fermina's heart, and it's easier said than done. Florentino's journey is absorbing, but Newell's film lacks the passion and complexity of Marquez's prose. The actors give it their all, but Love in the Time of Cholera is more of a pleasant diversion than a life-changing experience. –Kathleen C. Fennessy

User Ratings and Reviews

1 Star Cholera is more pleasant than this film
Good God, what was Mike Newell thinking when he took of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel "Love in the Time of Cholera?" THIS IS NOT "Four Weddings and a Funeral!" If you have not read the book, then this terrible screen adaptation will give you only a slight hint of the magnificent yearning that is in Marquez's prose and will replace it with a recreation of 1876-1930 Colombia.Poor Javier Bardem who acts his heart out in what little time Newell and screenwriter Harwood would allow.This is a total bore of a film that is lulling…and not in a good way!

1 Star The trailer seemed more convincing.
Not much left to say, except that this movie is a poor adaptation brought from the Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novel to the screen. The film fails in capturing the "latin soul" on the dialogues as well the lyrism and the intensity of the words from the book. Under this point of view, it was a big disappointment. Sincerely, the trailer seemed more convincing…

1 Star A Tepid film that captures little of the novel
From purely a film point of view, "Love in the Time of Cholera" is an extremely ill-conceived screenplay,with jumpy scenes and a need to tell a sprawling narrative with virtually no character revelation.

Now,from the standpoint that I had read the Marquez novel,and though I did not particularly find it an enjoyable read,made this film even more like a dull dream.There is no vision or understanding either with or without the knowledge of the book to qualify this as an interesting movie.For all of the pretty costumes and the cinematic shots of Colombia, this film needed to be done in more capable hands.Michael Newell shocks me with his lack of direction in this film.But ultimately it is the terrible screenplay that has ripped the heart and soul of the novel with an exacto knife and replaced it with a dull narrative that has replaced the intuitiveness and sweeping passion of the novel.It is hard to believe that the same man who scripted "The Pianist",and lesser films such as "Cry,The Beloved Country","Being Julia" and "Oliver Twist" could have been so off in his screenplay.Methinks that Mr. Harwood should not be adapting South American love stories with his his Cape Town to London uppercrustiness.

5 Stars Beautiful Scenery and Story!
Having been to Cartegna (where a great deal of this movie is shot), I was impressed by the cinematography that capture the beauty of the old portions of the city and the Colombian countryside in general!

The story is a lifetime love story (of Garica Marquez's great-grandfather?) of Florentino, who works in the Cartegna Western-Union type shop. One day Florentino spies Fermina and is instantly smitten. He goes home to compose a love-letter to her which literally is as long as a book. Pretty soon Florentino and Fermina are exchanging letters back and forth. Each waits in anticipation of the other's next letter.

One day Florentino goes to serenade Fermina and asks her to marry him. She hesitates (showing the audience of some signs to come) before her female companion (I guess it was her maid) convinces her to reluctantly say yes. Fermina's father is furious. He did not raise his prize daughter to be married to only a "wire clerk." He confronts Florentino who refuses to back down. Thus Fermina's father takes her away from Cartegena and Fermina tells Florentino just before going that she never wants to see him again.

Florentino is devastated and his mother feeling sorry for him convinces his uncle to put Florentino to work on a river boat far away from Cartegna.

In the meantime, Fermina contracts an illness. When the young doctor comes to see her, he is instantly taken by her beauty and asks her father for her hand. Her father gladly says yes and Fermina reluctantly marries.

Meanwhile Florentino has returned to Cartegna thinking that once Fermina's husband dies, she will come back to him. He does some very indiscreet things in the meantime while he is waiting (which will prove to be a very long time).

The movie is full of superb acting and relationships especially between Florentino and his mother, Florentino with his uncle, Florentino with a couple that he writes poetry for, Fermina and her cousin. There is some excellent background music sung by Shakira. The movie also shows the strong culture that is Colombia. This is a must see film for anyone who likes a good love story and wishing to know the beauty that is Colombia!

2 Stars Star power fails to save terrible screenplay adaptation of LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
A novel that was so full of dynamic drive and sustained longing,desire and passion has successfully become a lifeless,dry,insipid,passionless big screen terrible adaptation in the Mike Newell directed Ronald Harwood written LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA.Harwood's screenplay hits nothing but the high notes of the Marquez novel as if telling some historical travelogue through time,and in doing so sweeps away all that was poetic,stirring and life-giving to these characters.The film is shot in sound-byte scenes in attempt to get everything in thus eliminating the very life out of the story.In other words:CRAM IT ALL IN AND SUCK THE LIFE OUT OF IT!!!!

The story of the loving Florentine towards the young and beautiful Fermina is still there (somewhere).It commences in Colombia in 1876 and will span 51 years.The two star-struck lovers pass secret poetic notes.Their young love starts to mature,only to be halted by, what appears to be the film's motivation,Fermina's status hungry father (so overplayed by John Leguizamo that he should have been in PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN!)Fermina marries Dr.Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt) and thereby chooses to believe that her love for Florentine is illusory.Florentine,on the other hand,never resigns himself to illusion,but instead samples 622 women over the next 51 years ,always waiting for Fermina's husband to die. The adaptation is so choppy and lacking in the intuition of the novel that this 140 minute film registers dull on the film Richter scale.

The acting,as much as it is allowed to be from both Unax Ugalde and Javier Bardem as the young and old Florentine is outstanding.But the sound-byte scenes make for the same quick ejaculations that Florentine suffers sexually! The only other noteworthy performance comes from Fernanda Montenegro, the "Judi Dench/Meryl Streep" of South America as Florentine's mother.With the little time she is given, either lucid or mad,Montenegro does her best with her 10 minutes of screen time.

The fact that two actors played Florentine,but only one actress played Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno),looked particularly odd when it came to the make-up and the aging process.Bardem looked correct and also acted the part properly.Mezzogiorno looks made up and does not inhabit the old Fermina.Benjamin Bratt also fails to convince as the older doctor.Bardem is simply too good of an actor beside these cast members.

Lastly, this is a LATIN FILM full of LATIN SENSIBILITY, but interpreted by an Englishman and a British South African.It shows big time!

This film made me angry.This was a chance for film greatness and it is lost forever.A major disappointment.This is the second poor novel adaptation this year since EVENING.

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