Love in the Time of Cholera

The film adaptation of the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and starring Javier Bardem, Benjamin Bratt and Giovanna Mezzogiorno turns out to be overfull with love, and could have done with a great deal more cholera. Shambling and rambling this tale spanning five decades concerns the interwoven lives of three people in a nameless Latin American country. Poor telegraph boy Florentino falls desperately in love with wealthy Fermina, much to the disappointment of her father who sends her off into the jungle to forget. Upon her return she dumps the poor Florentino and marries instead urbane, devastatingly handsome and successful Doctor Urbino. Florentino vows to stay faithful to Fermina and keep himself until he can marry her. He does this by bedding several hundred women - a surprising feat considering his lack of looks, and increasing age - all due to the fact that he claims his heart is waiting to be filled with love and he represents no threat to the women. There are several problems with this film - all the actors talk with heavy Latin accents (I wonder why they didn't let them speak in their own language and use subtitles - fear of commercial failure perhaps?); the second difficulty is the lack of clear identification of the peripheral characters - it is never clear whether these are relatives, friends, acquaintances or (seemingly nameless) passers by. Then there is the problem of aging. The opening scene the three main characters in their seventies proves that a bit of make up and stooping isn't really convincing. These are clearly youthful actors. The story is only just this side of credible, and regularly strays into soft porn. Is this the fault of the book or the film. A pity, because much more could have been made from the basic premise. Rating - 5/10