Past Programs
Books - 2008
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Love in the Time of Cholera
22/05/2008
An epic love story, told mostly in flashback, set in Colombia around the turn of last century, about a man (played mostly by Javier Bardem) who falls in love and remains obsessed throughout his life, even when the woman (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) marries someone else.
I haven't read the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but this doesn't feel like a successful adaptation from screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly). It's too condensed -- especially early on -- jumping between characters and locations too quickly to allow any time to connect.
There are subterranean oceans of emotion here, but British director Mike Newell hasn't found them. From page to screen the story has lost too many layers of context -- and what we're left with is a pretty postcard.
