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?"
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