Winter's Tale
Film Review
by Kam Williams
Cat Burglar Courts Sickly Heiress in Searing Exploration of Undying Love
Peter
Lake’s (Colin Farrell) parents had hoped
to immigrate to the U.S. but
were turned away at Ellis Island upon their
arrival early in the 20th Century. Denied their shot at the American
Dream, the Russian couple decided to leave their baby behind, setting him adrift
in a tiny model of a ship called the “City of Justice.”
The infant was carried by the tide
to the shores of Bayonne, New Jersey where he was found and raised by
compassionate clam-diggers. Upon coming of age, the teen moved to Manhattan and earned an
honest wage as a mechanic until succumbing to the pressure to join a gang of
ruffians led by the ruthless Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe).
Peter was subsequently schooled in thievery under
Pearly’s tutelage, though the two would become mortal enemies once the protégé tired
of doing his malevolent mentor’s bidding as a cat burglar. Even after severing
his ties to the criminal enterprise, the exasperated orphan was forever looking
over his shoulder while on the run from the burly bully.
A critical moment of truth arrives
when Peter finds himself surrounded by his former partners in crime and is somehow
spirited away by a winged white stallion. Another turning point in the lad’s
life transpires the fateful night he enters a well-fortified mansion’s
second-floor window with felonious intentions.
For, before he has a chance to
ransack the premises, Peter comes face-to-face with Beverly Penn (Jessica
Brown Findlay), a
sickly young heiress suffering from tuberculosis. And despite her impending
demise, he becomes hopelessly smitten with the frail, philosophical free-spirit.
Over the objections of her skeptical father (William Hurt), the star-crossed
lovers proceed to embark on an otherworldly romance as enduring as it is ethereal.
Thus
unfolds Winter’s Tale, a delightful flight of fancy marking the directorial
debut of Akiva Goldsman, who won an Oscar for his screenplay adaptation of A
Beautiful Mind. Akiva also wrote the script for this film which is based on
Mark Helprin’s flowery best-seller of the same name.
Does this movie measure up to the source
material? Can’t say, since I haven’t read it. Nevertheless, I found this
well-crafted piece of magical realism quite imaginative and intriguing, though
I suspect fans of the book might be a bit disappointed, given how much is ordinarily lost in translation bringing any 700-page
book to the big screen.
A searing, supernatural exploration of
the human soul suggesting not only that love is real but that miracles happen,
too!
Excellent
(4 stars)
Rated PG-13
for sensuality and violence
Running time: 118 minutes
Distributor: Warner
Brothers
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