SnoReptilePlenty Memorable, crazy movie

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Bob This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

fkkemble Good caste, appalling script and transparent plot. My wife and I love period drama's but this wasn't one. I turned it off after an hour. I have to say that Henry James is generally pretty dismal as a writer in my opinion and so the movie was seriously hamstrung from the start. I really like Jeremy Northam but his Italian accent made me want to punch him. I think that Uma Thurman is a good actress but I don't see her in this genre sadly. The British are the absolute kings of period drama in my opinion and so the US producers should really concentrate on the big screen thriller or sci-fi movies which they are so good at. If the British had produced and directed this movie there may have been improvement but they would never have picked it in the first place.

Philby-3 Henry James has been given the Merchant Ivory treatment before, and he and the film makers go well together. His lush prose matches the lushness of Merchant Ivory production values, and their casting is always interesting. Uma Thurman does not spring to mind as a likely Jamesian character, but she acquits herself well as the bold and beautiful Charlotte Verver. Nick Nolte is not bad as her mega-rich husband Adam, who she marries for his money despite being in love with the handsome but penniless Prince Amerigo (Jeremy Northham). Kate Beckinsale plays Adam's callow young daughter Maggie who marries Amerigo, unaware of his relationship with her friend Uma. Screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala doesn't try to imitate the Jamesian style but keeps the dialogue reasonably simple, though Jeremy Northam's Italian accent reminded me of the Count from Sesame Street ('ave I a number for you!) Several English stately homes including the Elizabethan Burghley House put in special guest appearances, as does Angelica Huston as an unlikely English aristocrat.As a substantial and very wordy novel has been shoehorned into 120 minutes on screen, much has been omitted and the plot line simplified. There was a 6 part TV miniseries made in 1972 which was rather less lively than this production. Even the Golden Bowl itself (gilded crystal rather than gold) meets its end at the hands of a different character in the film. Yet despite the lush setting, it is James's plot which carries the picture – contrived, perhaps, but interesting nonetheless – helped along by fine performances from most of the principals. Kate and Uma are able to exploit the fact that James's female characters tend to be better realised than his men. I think I'd have to say that the film is easier to watch than the novel is to read.

bartese As frequently happens even in literary criticism, the desire to see the Americans in this story as put-upon heroes and the Europeans as scheming evildoers is what drives this film. It has nothing to do with what James actually wrote.Despite the film's presumption that Charlotte and Amerigo are having an affair, the book never supposes this. They were lovers before Amerigo's marriage, and the tension (in the book) resides in the Europeans having to negotiate the new situation. James is not at all interested in whether Charlotte and Amerigo are continuing to be lovers. The point of the story is the American girl's descent into utter paranoia because she projects European treachery onto everything they do.Always "believing herself in relation to the truth," Maggie comes to read "symptoms and betrayals into everything she looked at . . . ". Like a careless undergraduate reader, this film is unaware that Maggie's vision is utterly paranoid, and so it obtusely presents that vision as reality. Why? Because that "reality" affirms the "good American" vs. "bad European" expectation that James is actually satirizing.Leave it to Merchant-Ivory to miss the central point of the novel...

cait112001 I found this movie to be plot less. You are led on to believe there is a twisted 'Love Square' going on. When really it is merely a story that could be figured out in a matter of minutes. A cheating husband, a daughter tragically attached to her father, and a best friend to betray her ( as it always your best friend that will sleep with your husband). The movies jumps with little to no detail. The dialogue lacked flow and seemed forced.***********Spoilers Ahead*********** I am quite the fan of Kate Beckinsale, and though her acting never faulted, I think it was a mistake to take the role. It made her out to be oblivious and dim-witted. To blind to see that her husband was cheating on her with her best friend, coincidently her fathers wife. Everyone around her was trying to protect her 'innocence' and yet she never acts out against it and instead remains loyal to those who kept it from her. Another mistake is that she is the main character. The story is really centered around Uma Thurman and Jeremy Northam. Their acting is believable, though I must say I found it hard to not think of Uma trying to kill bill while I watched her act hopelessly in love with a married man. The father in the story seemed oblivious but when he did appear to know he seemed to quickly forget it and go along with his plans to build a museum in American City.This movie was a waste of my time in all regards, not something to watch when you are not quite awake as you will fall asleep, not that is a problem as nothing really happens the entire middle hour and a half of the movie. So in conclusion if you are looking for relatively good acting this is an OK movie, but if you are looking for a story with decent dialogue go somewhere else or you will be very disappointed.