Review of Goya's Ghosts (2006) by Edward F — 10 Dec 2007

I was not impressed by this at all. There was so little actual 'point' to anything that I found it bewildering. Not only that but this has to be one of the worst performances ever by Natalie Portman, who normally is excellent. However, the script is particularly threadbare, and the lack of energy and believability is hardly her fault. The accents are terrible, with Portman and Skarsgard (playing Goya) notably not even bothering to try, and the others stuttering around with their cod spanglish - why didn't he just make it in Spanish, and subtitle it - it worked for "Pan's Labyrinth".

For the director who made "One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest", and "Amadeus" - both fantastic- this is low grade fare. The problem for me is that it tries too hard, and has no substance - the Goya connection is not really exploited past showing a few of his beautiful paintings, and we never get a sense of why it all happened. Although the inquisition was, of course, prone to taking the most pointless course of action. "The Name of the Rose" does a better job of showing the terror of the inquisition though, something that one does not get a sense of with this movie, and though there is a wide historical sweep to the, it never goes anywhere or seeks to draw meaning from those events. It's a series of largely pointless happenings that don't allow for any real connection with the characters. I was almost bored enough to simply switch it off, as I didn't care about the characters to stay with it. Definitely not one to see twice.