Review of Love in the Time of Cholera (2007) by Sapphire G — 11 Jun 2011

You just don't do this to a Gabriel Garcia Marquez story, it's cruel to his readers and to art in general. Filmmakers should finally embrace the fact that Gabo's stories are simply not filmable, they can only exist on the page and must remain there forever.

The delicate fantasy, exuberance, and unique tone of Garcia Marquez's work is, of course, absent here. Without it, Florentino is just a womanizer/stalker and the story is far from likeable. I hated this movie with a passion.

I hated the way the story was set out. I was appalled at Javier Bardem's horrid old make up, still he is such a great actor that he managed to invest the character with some dignity behind all that execrable junk.

But not even he could save this ship from sinking. And of course, they choose to make a story set in Colombia in English, even though out of the whole cast only Benjamin Bratt and Liev Schreiber are native English-speakers.

But God forbid Hollywood should make a movie with subtitles. I wish Garcia Marquez had never granted these people the rights to massacre one of his greatest stories. Apparently Newell did not realize this was no Harry Potter, and felt he could take on the more complex challenge of translating it to the screen.

Oh well, who are we kidding, even his HP was a flop.