A Love That Will Never Grow Old or Fun

Adapted from the 1985 novel by Gabriel García Márquez, Love In the Time of Cholera, directed by Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral), is a turn-of-the-century tale set in Cartagena, Colombia, about a man’s lifelong love for a woman.

You’d think that this, an epic romance, would be riveting, but you’d be wrong.

Mind you, I’m all about epic romance – much more so than anyone would think – but I found Love In the Time of Cholera to be quite boring, actually.

Javier Bardem stars as Florentino Ariza, a fool for love who falls in real, ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can’t-live-without-each other love with the beautiful and sheltered Fermina Daza (Giovanna Mezzogiorno).

Their love affair is interrupted early on when her father resolves to keep them apart to ensure that Fermina will marry a suitable man rather than poor, telegraph clerk Florentino.

As the years go by, Fermina marries the esteemed Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt), and all but forgets her first love. But, more than 600 women later, Florentino has not forgotten her.

Now a wealthy ship-owner, he waits patiently for the chance to be with her again – and you will wait…and wait…and wait for this movie to end.

This isn’t a terrible movie; it’s just too long. And the central conflict of the story is so uninteresting that less than halfway through you probably won’t care if Florentino and Fermina end up together.

Bardem is terrific – perhaps a little too terrific in basically the role of a sap; it’s unnerving. And Mezzogiorno doesn’t appear confident on screen.

The movie would have benefited from being made in Spanish, by a team of Latin American filmmakers instead of British ones. A better understanding and use of the material would have made Love In the Time of Cholera truly epic.

My Rating **

Photo: New Line Cinema.