Review of Titanic (1997) by Tom Z — 18 Aug 2017

A movie about love blossoming between two people from different societies only to be tragically torn apart. We see echoes of similar stories like Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story in this film. The love story between Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Jack, and Kate Winslet's character, Rose, Is the best part of the film.

What holds the film back is when it focuses on side characters and plots. A large portion of the beginning of the film revolves around a treasure hunter trying to find a very valuable neckless that went down with the titanic.

After finding a sketch of a woman wearing the neckless on the sunken ship and showing it on TV an elderly Rose realizes it was her and travels to see her picture in person. After a while Rose recalls her story of falling in love on the titanic and from there we learn of the love story.

While this scene in the beginning does set up several things, like telling us how valuable the neckless is, It last way past its welcome. Many characters pop up for a scene or even a single line then disappear until the very end where we see them getting on a boat or deal with the destruction in their own ways.

Having so many of these pads out the length of this film while also taking away from other side characters who have more to give to the overall story and themes. One character is a woman who used to be poor but after working hard make money and is now part of the upper class.

Because of her background she has a different view then the other members of the upper class. At the end of the film we see this come to a head when she wants to go back and help save people while others on her raft refuse.

The scenes that don't focus on the love story or class differences hold this film back and make the 3 hour run time feel unbearable. James Cameron should have cut some redundant scenes and pointless side characters to make this a more focused film.