Review of Out of Africa (1985) by K L — 19 Jun 2012

Sydney Pollack's comedy work as a director (TOOTSIE) and as an actor (in a dozen Woody Allen films) has endured the time much better than this flamboyantly melodramatic period piece. It uses the most cliched flashback formula to very little purpose; it has two great actors who are given very little character to work with; the story is drab however the details are stretched very disproportionally to indulge in melodrama; as a period piece that involves humanity study and politics, it has very little message to convey; its beauty in photography is the cliched kind, the kind that features sunset on a boundless meadow and little shadows of figures walk back with a rifle over their shoulders - conventional beauty that find their way to desktop backgrounds.

All of this being said, OUT OF AFRICA is still a solid movie that in some way lives up to its reputation as a great classic, but I can't help but feel that Sydney Pollack's ambition in making a great epic is more than he can handle.