Winter's Tale Review

Rated PG-13 (Violence and Some Sensuality)

Running Time: 1 Hour & 58 Minutes

Cast-

Colin Farrell-Peter Lake

Jessica Brown Findlay-Beverly Penn

Russell Crowe-Pearly Soames

William Hurt-Isaac Penn

Jennifer Connelly-Virginia Gamely

Eva Marie Saint-Adult Willa Penn

Will Smith-Lucifer

Mckayla Twiggs-Young Willa Penn

Ripley Sobo-Abby Gamely

Kevin Corrigan-Romeo Tan

Kevin Durand-Cesar Tan

Matt Bomer-Peter Lake's Father

Lucy Griffiths-Peter Lake's Mother

Directed by Akiva Goldsman

Oh look, they're riding the TriStar logo!

Note: Screened on Tuesday, February 11, 2014 at the Zeigfeld Theater (Red Carpet Premiere).

Akiva Goldsman's directorial debut "Winter's Tale" spends a lot of time exploring the nature of miracles but the cruel irony is that not even a miracle can save this silly and misguided romance film. Born in New York City in 1962, Goldsman has had a long and illustrious career in Hollywood as a writer and producer, winning an Academy Award in 2002 for Best Adapted Screenplay for Ron Howard's "A Beautiful Mind." However, this is also the same man that gave us 1995's "Batman Forever" and 1997's "Batman & Robin," the latter of which is one of the worst films ever made, comic book adaptation or not. Goldsman's name has been attached to a number of high-profile blockbusters such as 2004's "I, Robot" and 2006's "The Da Vinci Code" but more often than not, reviews for his work has been negative and at best, mixed. Sure, he's written some good films—"The Client" and "Cinderella Man" come to mind—yet they feel more like flukes when they're compared with the rest of his résumé. Based on the critically-acclaimed 1983 novel by Mark Helprin, "Winter's Tale" has been a passion project for Goldsman for quite some time but he probably should've taken a tip from Martin Scorsese, who wanted to adapt the 700-page tome for the big screen but was forced to abandon it as he deemed the story to be 'unfilmable.' Unabashedly sentimental, Colin Farrell and Jessica Brown Findlay manage to make their characters' love story work while it lasts yet the same can't be said for the rest of "Winter's Tale," a fantasy romance film that dumps all the fantasy on the audience's lap without logically making any sense of it, resulting in a disastrous picture that's just too cheesy and nonsensical to take seriously.

In 1895, a Russian couple (Matt Bomer and Lucy Griffiths) arrives at New York City's Ellis Island in the hopes of starting a new life together with their infant son but they are denied entry when the doctor discovers that the husband is seriously ill. Forced to return to Europe, the father decides to set his baby adrift at sea in a model sailboat bound for the New York Harbor. Twenty-one years later, the baby grows up into a handsome young man named Peter Lake (Colin Farrell), a petty thief who is now on the run from his old boss Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe). Cornered by Pearly and his crew, Peter is saved by the TriStar logo, I mean a mysterious (and seemingly magical) white horse called Athansor. Gathering his belongings, Peter hopes to lie low in the countryside with his new companion but Athansor instead leads him to the home of wealthy newspaper publisher Isaac Penn (William Hurt). Believing that the horse wants him to burglarize the place, Peter breaks into the house and is about to crack open the safe when he hears someone playing the piano. It is Penn's beautiful daughter Beverly (Jessica Brown Findlay) and the instant (and I mean this literally) Peter lays eyes on her, he falls in love. However, Beverly is slowly dying from consumption (tuberculosis). Just when he's finally found happiness, Peter loses it as Beverly succumbs to her disease shortly after they make love. Following a deadly encounter with Soames on the Brooklyn Bridge, Peter loses his memory and spends the next century wandering the streets of New York with no purpose. A chance meeting with a New York Sun food columnist named Virginia Gamely (Jennifer Connelly) gives Peter renewed hope as he faces Soames, revealed to be a demon from Hell, once more.

There's a scene midway through "Winter's Tale" (no relation to the 1623 William Shakespeare play) where Peter and Beverly finally make love in a tent on the Penn mansion's roof but this tender and passionate occasion is ruined when she dies shortly after. Actually, 'shortly after' isn't fully accurate as Beverly pretty much dies the minute her orgasm ends and what is meant to be a sad moment instead becomes laughable because Goldsman makes it seem like Beverly died from the sex rather than from her disease. When a character's death ends up being funny in what is supposedly a romantic drama, than you have a serious problem on your hands. "Winter's Tale" is a beautiful film to look at thanks to Caleb Deschanel's cinematography but the script—written by Goldsman—is an absolute mess. While I knew that there would be a supernatural component to the story since the novel belongs to the 'magical realism' subgenre, the director has unfortunately failed to translate that aspect to the big screen because he doesn't even bother to explain the logistics of how this mythical universe works. This means the audience will be left scratching their heads in bewilderment when a white horse just seemingly sprouts wings and flies off into the air like the TriStar logo. Rather than immersing you into the plot, these supernatural moments end up being distracting because you're struggling to grasp how the fantasy elements mesh with the turn-of-the-century love story. From what I understand (and believe me, I tried really hard), New York City is some sort of battleground between good and evil where demons masquerading themselves as humans are trying to prevent people from using their 'miracles'…or something to that effect. See, attempting to even make sense of it will only end in frustration. The dialogue is awful as well and is composed of hokey mumbo-jumbo about how people turn into twinkling stars when they die and includes such gems like 'The sicker I become, the more clearly I can see that everything is connected by light!', and then the entire shot is filled with J.J. Abrams-styled lens flare for inexplicable reasons. You can't even make this sh*t up, not even when you're drunk. Oh, and Will Smith plays Soames' demonic boss Lucifer. Yep, the former Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is now the Fresh Prince of Darkness, complete with earrings the size of thumbs and a Jimi Hendrix t-shirt. So I guess it's true, rock-and-roll really is the devil's music!       

The only aspect that succeeds is the romance between Peter and Beverly and its all thanks to the charming performances from Colin Farrell and Jessica Brown Findlay (Lady Sybil Branson from the popular British television series "Downton Abbey"). Whenever Goldsman focuses on them, "Winter's Tale" becomes a tolerable film despite the schmaltzy way he handles their characters. Farrell and Findlay display enough chemistry with each other that for forty-or-so minutes, you're actually invested in the story…until she dies and that damn flying horse returns. The rest of the supporting cast fails to match the two leads, with Russell Crowe hamming it up as the demonic gangster Pearly Soames. Hell, most of Crowe's dialogue is completely indecipherable due to the heavy Irish accent he adopts. William Hurt and Jennifer Connelly do what they can but they're trapped in thankless roles. Connelly in particular spends the climax crying while cradling her character's daughter (Ripley Sobo) as Peter and Pearly engage in a fistfight on a frozen lake. Eva Marie Saint pops in as well but her character's inclusion makes no sense whatsoever. Assuming her younger self is around age ten, that would make Saint's character 109-years-old. Sure, there are people who live past a hundred yet Goldsman doesn't even acknowledge it and even if he did, he'd probably just say it was magic that kept her alive.

Released on February 14, 2014, "Winter's Tale" has received overwhelmingly negative reviews with a paltry 15% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics noted that Goldsman 'tries to retain the grandiose sweep of its source novel, but [he] fails to fill it in with characters worth rooting for or a sensible plot.' I saw this film during its world premiere and people were actually laughing while the cast and director were sitting in the audience. To add insult to injury, "Winter's Tale" flopped during its opening weekend, coming in at eighth place with only $8.1 million. Maybe Warner Brothers will think twice before throwing $60 million into the hands of Goldsman. I'm almost tempted to recommend this film just so you guys can see this train wreck with your own eyes but I don't want a mob coming after me with pitchforks. However, I will say this: in directing, writing, and producing "Winter's Tale," Goldsman has given us another "Batman & Robin"-sized disaster for us to laugh at. If that's what he was going for, than bravo!

Final Rating: 1.5 out of 5

"Is it possible to love someone so completely that you can't die?"