So you’re telling me the guy who wrote Batman and Robin didn’t have the ability to pull off a time-traveling, supernatural rom-com? How dare you.
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“Winter’s Tale” is a story of angels and demons in a mythical New York City, and how love and miracles can impact the lives around us. It’s written and directed by Akiva Goldsman who is directing his first movie after writing so many others. It’s based on the best selling book of the same name and if my description of it sounded a bit vague for you, well that’s because I’m not sure I really understood what was going on. I don’t think it was that it was too complex, rather, the opposite might be true, for as expansive as the world was, I never really felt like the movie cared to explain anything in any detailed way. Which is a shame because it seems like a pretty interesting spiritual exploration and there are some wonderful actors at the ready to work it out.
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Colin Farrell, Will Smith, Jennifer Connelly, and WIlliam Hurt, all seemed somewhat handcuffed by the material even as they gave decent performances. And that’s without mentioning Russell Crowe, who though I can imagine some might find him to be over acting a bit here, I actually found myself really enjoying his choices as a demon with a bone to pick with our hero. But the best thing for me was seeing Lady Sybil from Downton Abbey doing some really beautiful work as Colin Farrell’s love interest. She is absolutely radiant on screen and captures a joy that isn’t much seen in the rest of the film. Also her name is actually Jessica Brown-Findlay in case you were wondering, but she’ll always be Lady Sybil to me.
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But again the problem is these performances are wasted in a convoluted mess of a story. I’m guessing the movie tried to compact a very expansive book, and in turn left out much of the character development we needed to invest in these people. Because of that we are left with little to no understanding of why these people are making the choices they are making, and therefore no investment in their success or failure. But the worst thing for me about this movie was that the humor was just off. There is this tone throughout many of the scenes that plays much more slapstick and gregarious than the drama would like. That silliness, as well as the silliness of some of the plot mechanics undercuts any tension or power that the movie might want to build up and adds further chaos to an movie already in disarray.
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Overall, “Winter’s Tale” is a disjointed and silly effort to encapsulate what looked to be an interesting world. Even with some great actors giving good performances, the inability for the movie to stand on it’s own drives my final grade down to a C-
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