 |  | | Love in the time of Cholera |
Review #568 of 365
Movie Review of Love in the time of Cholera (2007) [R] 138 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $14.25
Where Viewed: United Artists Colorado Center 9 & IMAX, Denver, CO
When 1st Seen: 16 November 2007
Time: 3:45 pm
DVD Release Date: 18 March 2008 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
Soundtrack: Download now from 
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Directed by: Mike Newell (HP: Goblet of Fire)
Screenplay by: Ronald Harwood (Oliver Twist) based on the novel by Gabriel García Márquez
Featured Cast (Where You Might Remember Him/Her From):
Benjamin Bratt (The Great Raid ) • Gina Bernard Forbes (debut) • Giovanna Mezzogiorno (AD Project) • Javier Bardem (Collateral) • Marcela Mar (Adiós, Ana Elisa) • Juan Ángel (Esquina, La) • Catalina Botero (debut) • Luis Fernando Hoyos (Sin Amparo) • Unax Ugalde (Goya's Ghosts) • Liev Schreiber (The Ten) • John Leguizamo (Ice Age: The Meltdown) • Hector Elizondo (Georgia Rule)
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People who read and fell in love with Gabriel García Márquez's acclaimed novel Love in the Time of Cholera have eagerly awaited a suitable adaptation of the massive novel for film. Ronald Harwood, who adapted Oliver Twist most recently, seems like an excellent choice to handle another literary masterpiece. Mick Newell who recently directed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire--many people consider the book a future literary masterpiece--also seems like a good choice to direct. Obviously, there are going to be things cut in shaping down the raw elements necessary to make the book work as a film. Many of us were coaxed into reading the book as part of the curriculum for Spanish IV. I recall thinking that a book too hard for most people to read in English wasn't going to work too well for me in a second language. We mottled through somehow, but not much stuck through all these years. This is no reflection on the talent nor writing style of Sr. García Márquez—I don't remember a word of The Sun Also Rises which I read a few years later in college. In any case, as I prefer not to have movies ruined by books, I'm glad the memories of Love in the Time of Cholera has faded over time to allow for the experience of the film to stand out new. And, I'm fairly certain, I'll never forget the film. The story takes place in Cartagena, Colombia and explores the 50 years of unrequited love endured by Florentino Ariza (Javier Bardem) as he falls for Fermina Urbino (Govanna Mezzogiorno) as a young man (Unax Ugalde), pursues her via love letters, and loses her when her father, Lorenzo Daza (John Leguizamo) moves her out of his reach to a far away village. Here, she is treated by a physician for what the family believes to be cholera, but which Dr. Juvenal Urbino treats and cures as some other ailment. Lorenzo encourages the Doctor to pursue his beautiful daughter; and, eventually, they marry and enjoy a two-year honeymoon in Paris. In her absence, Florentino commits to making himself a better man when it came to his station in life, so he signs up with his uncle's company to be a clerk. His uncle, Don Leo (Hector Elizondo), employs him to handle letters and bills of lading, but finds himself concerned when they are written as lively poetry rather than as straight letters and bills.
"Mike Newell captures well the vibrant, colorful, hustle bustle, and excitement of the times, … Javier Bardem … endows Florentino with humility and humor to carry him as far as a love-struck young man will go. "
Poor Florentino is so smitten with his long lost love, he commits to helping others by writing love letters for them and himself to over 600 young ladies who test his prowess as a lover. He admits his success is due, however, not to his excellence at performance, but to the perception of the need to feel the empty space in his heart saved forever for Fermina. In these basic elements, the story, ripe with elegance and purity, distills down like the remains of rose petal distillation into a perfume as intoxicating and lovely as one could imagine the purest love to ever be. By today's standards, one might think it entirely improbable that someone could wait for more than 50 years for a last opportunity to confess his love for another. Nonetheless, this is precisely the goal Florentino sets for himself. The film's adaptation seems to stick fairly well with the story line of the original creation using the camera's lens to soak in the beautiful scenery in place of pages of descriptions and accountings of nuances that enliven and enrich the original novel. Mike Newell captures well the vibrant, colorful, hustle bustle, and excitement of the times, despite the horrors of so many losing their lives to cholera. Likewise, the cast members deliver their characters well with the standouts being Javier Bardem and Giovanna Mezzogiorno of course. Both endure the aging process via make-up, and both capture well the nuances of their characters and the love always percolating beneath the surface between them even when hundreds of miles apart. Javier Bardem, especially, endows Florentino with humility and humor to carry him as far as a love-struck young man will go. The only thing that would have enhanced the experience of the film would have been to have taken the risk and allowed it to have been spoken in its original language. USAers need to get over their fear of learning languages and reading subtitles in films. Something was lost due to the language change, and it sounded off a bit with actors using Spanish English accents. Why not have just left it in Spanish? Producers and studios needed to imagine that a movie with the word 'cholera' in the title wasn't going to do red hot box office numbers in the first place, so why not just have allowed it to sound as beautifully as it looks in its native language?
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Other Projects Featuring Love in the time of Cholera (2007)
Cast Members
Benjamin Bratt
• Gina Bernard Forbes • Giovanna MezzogiornoJavier Bardem
• Marcela Mar • Juan ÁngelCatalina Botero
• Luis Fernando Hoyos • Unax UgaldeLiev Schreiber
• Hector ElizondoDirector
Mike Newell
Writer
Ronald Harwood
| Book | MP3 | Poster |
| DVD | VHS |
An excellent cast featuring: Benjamin Bratt, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Javier Bardem, Hector Elizondo, and John Leguizamo, under the direction of Mike Newell have transformed Gabriel García Márquez's incredible and timeless novel, Love in the Time of Cholera into a beautiful film with rich and nuanced performances and a wondrous ending to behold. Sticking fairly well to the book, the film replaces pages of narrative description with longer focuses on the countryside and characters who literally leap off the script and onto the screen. Especially Javier Bardem's Florentino. It's impossible to see how Fermina lived so long without him by her side—the true love of her life. Behold the wondrous ending that restores faith in romance and the investment in more than fifty years of unrequited love.
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