Review of Love in the Time of Cholera (2007) by Lindsay W — 27 Dec 2008

Awkward in just about every way imaginable. The narrative had no sense of continuity, never quite deciding from what point of view the story was being told, and the dialogue often slipped to the contemporary.

If there was a love story here, I couldn't find it. Instead, we follow the groundless infatuation of Javier Bardem, who's 50 year stalking of Giovanna Mezzogiorno is based solely on a few love letters exchanged in youth.

And through all this, we get to watch him sleep with 600 different women - true love indeed! Despite the length of the film, the story never seemed to go anywhere and the characters were nothing more than hollow shells, whose motives were indeterminate.

I couldn't have cared less about any of them, espeically the "lovers" - they never gave me a reason to. Javier's chararcter was, like he's described in the film, a ghost, with no subtantial personality.

Giovanni's character was aloof and disinterested, yet somehow managed to evoke such long-lasting passion. Meanwhile, John Leguizamo is so bad it hurts, and the rest of the cast isn't much better; being undermined in no small part by the horrible make-up.

Long, dull, and without one iota of romance.