As far as novelists go, Gabriel Garcia Marquez isn’t quite known for his subtlety, but that has less to do with a lack of nuance than it does with an enormity of scope. This is, after all, the man who wrote an allegorical re-telling of the entire history of Latin America—A Hundred Years of Solitude—that drew more comparisons to the book of Genesis than anything else. When dealing with such vast, generation-spanning story arcs and sweeping themes, of course, what might otherwise be termed “subtle” is instead called “complex”—but regardless of what one calls it, Marquez is a master, an author who can write books about entire nations and make us care about intimate relationships of individual characters.
And of course, all of that—the broad scope, the nuance in characterization—is unfilmable; trying to bring the full breadth of a Marquez novel is like trying to adapt the entirety of the Lord of the Rings or the Chronicles of Narnia, without sacrificing a single character or event or geographical detail, no matter how minor. It simply cannot be done. That said, Marquez has such creative generosity, and his themes are so universal, that his work could—theoretically—be abbreviated, its spirit distilled, and a winning interpretation of Marquez could be spectacular, where a full-blown adaptation just isn’t feasible.
I say “theoretically,” of course, because it has yet to be done. A Hundred Years of Solitude joins Catcher in the Rye and Infinite Jest on the short list of 20th century novels that will likely never be adapted to the big screen, and Mike Newell’s take on Love in the Time of Cholera—one of Marquez’ most popular and acclaimed novels—is such a spectacular misfire on so many levels, one fears the effects will trickle down and taint the impact of the source material itself. Muddled and misguided almost beyond comprehension, Cholera clips the scope of Marquez’s novel and loses any shading of complexity or subtlety in its storytelling or characterization. The story’s power is totally drained; its vibrant creativity, muted; its universal resonance, lost amidst a parade of wasted talent.
Its failure is so complete, in fact, that it’s hard to tell exactly where the blame lies—though I’d nominate pretty much everyone involved, starting with Marquez for signing over the rights. Here’s the story in brief: Florentino Ariza (Javier Bardem, receiving much better notices in No Country for Old Men) is completely smitten with Fermina Urbino (Giovanna Mezzogiorno), and though both are young and they come from entirely different family backgrounds—to say nothing of the fact that they’ve never, you know, spoken—Florentino begins an aggressive letter-writing campaign to win her over. In what is doubtless a much better-developed relationship in the book, Fermina receives Florentino’s first letter and swoons; moments later—and evidently after significant passage of in-film time—we learn that the two have been exchanging letters for quite a while, and that they are hopelessly and maddeningly in love. (Something we in the audience care very little about, having spent so little time with these characters, hardly any time with both of them together.)
And of course, it isn’t meant to be. Fermina’s father, Lorenzo (John Leguizamo, even more silly and over the top than he is in Ice Age), strongly objects, and whisks his daughter to a far-off town for a year’s time. Florentino cries a lot and pledges his undying love and chastity until her return, but, when the big day finally arrives, he is heartbroken to find that she is no longer interested in him. Fermina instead turns to a stable but joyless marriage to a respected physician (Benjamin Bratt, Catwoman, Miss Congeniality); Florentino, on the other hand, cries a lot more, then launches into a long string of purely physical affairs with woman after woman, desperately seeking to dull the pain of lost love.
It’s a story that could either be grand and passionate, even Shakespearean in its pathos; or, it could be pure, schmaltzy melodrama. The film seems almost hell-bent on achieving the latter, turning the gravity and heartwrenching dignity of Marquez’ work into overblown, overstuffed farce. Everything about Newell’s direction is completely bland and featureless; it’s as if the camerawork is striving for an unobtrusive, naturalistic effect, which means that the attention is all on the acting and the writing. Too bad; only Bardem and Bratt exhibit any subtlety whatsoever, with most everyone else seeming to have drifted into the film from a community theater production. (It’s never a good sign when a supposedly stirring drama reminds you frequently of Waiting for Guffman.) The worst offender is Leguizamo, who hams it up with such astonishing overacting as to provoke uproarious laughter during some of the film’s most “serious” moments.
But not even great actors could redeem this mess of a script. Screenwriter Ronald Harwood—who did such fine work on The Pianist—has stripped the story not only of its power, but of its interest and even its comprehensibility. Obviously an adaptation like this has to do some editing of its source material, but most everything here seems underdeveloped, just so the film can focus on Florentino’s steamy sequence of affairs. None of the relationships—least of all his and Fermina’s—are given enough room for us to care, or even understand them, and many plot developments and character motivations are never quite explained, as if huge chunks of the story have simply been cut. Most disappointing of all is how Marquez’ riveting poetry has been completely desecrated in favor of some of the most stilted and tacky dialogue one can imagine. The film’s idea of romance: A husband and wife lie in bed together and talk seductively about “doing it.” By the end of the movie, the dialogue collapses into meaningless generalities and vague aphorisms about “love”—something that is on display at no point in this film—that lack any resonance because of all the blundering storytelling that’s come before.
But then again, it might not be the screenwriter’s fault, either—many scenes in the film end jarringly and inexplicably, as if it underwent a major hack job in the editing room. It’s possible that the studio, sensing what a dog it had on its hands, lopped off as much as they could to keep the movie as brief as possible. (Still, these two hours and twenty minutes feel twice that long, so the movie’s runtime is hardly merciful.) Whatever the case, Love in the Time of Cholera is a failure so complete that it will inevitably sour many moviegoers to the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez—a real tragedy. And its execution is so styleless and clumsy that it can’t even be called a trainwreck, or a glorious mistake; it’s simply two-plus hours of muddled moviemaking without anything to redeem it, raising only the question of how the people involved could possibly stand beside it as anything but a terrible mistake.
Talk About It
Discussion starters- Many of the characters in the film talk about love. Do you think any of them ever experience real love—or exhibit any of the characteristics of Christian love? Does the movie make any meaningful statements about love? How does the movie’s definition of love contrast with that of 1 Corinthians 13?
- How does Florentino deal with heartache? Does it ever seem to help him?
- Do any of the characters exhibit genuine fidelity?
The Family Corner
For parents to considerLove in the Time of Cholera is rated R for sexual content, nudity, and some brief language. Because the story largely revolves around a man undergoing a series of affairs, there is much sexuality here, including many shots of topless women and one scene of brief rear nudity. There is nothing more explicit than that, either in terms of nudity or movement, but it’s still a movie of a highly sexual nature. There are also some clumsy, awkward discussions of male and female anatomy, wherein genitalia are discreetly referred to as “things.”
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