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Directed by: Lasse Hallstrom Starring: Heath Ledger, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller January is traditionally Hollywood’s spring cleaning. All those films that have been sitting on the shelf without any real marketing edge or hype are dumped after a slew of Oscar bait films have been released in December. In this wake of the Oscar season and right in time for spring cleaning is Lasse Hallstrom’s Casanova. Heath Ledger plays the title character as an 18th century Don Juan DeMarco in the most romantic city in the world, Venice. Women tremble at the sight of him, falling to their knees in awe. He is still a tender age of twenty something, but he is already a living legend, a myth in his own time. Women want to be with him, and men want to be him. The film is set during the Roman Inquisition, where the Catholic Church sought out heretics and practitioners of false doctrines. Casanova is caught in the act of trying to seduce a nun who is sworn to a life of chastity and a vow of silence. She keeps neither, and when the two are caught with their clothes off (literally), Casanova is subject to death by hanging the next morning. Miraculously, he is saved by the Venetian government – they are both sympathizers and admirers of the great Casanova. There is a catch though – the fabled lover must find a wife to betroth and give up his wild and aimless life. The powers to be can no longer protect his undomesticated lifestyle. Hallstrom tries to the mold the movie as a traditional romantic comedy, but there is a problem. It just is not that funny. There are one-liners in every scene, and almost all of them fall flat. There is a cast of dramatists trying to play light-hearted jesters. Hallstrom has asked a prince to play a pauper. The sad part is that none of the actors involved are inadequate – just uninspired. Heath Ledger is coming off an incredible performance in Brokeback Mountain. Oliver Platt (Paprizzio), Sienna Miller (Francesca Bruni), and Jeremy Irons (Pucci) are all very capable actors, but it just looks as if they are a herd of deer stunned in front of a set of headlights. You could almost hear the cast saying under their breath “is this thing almost over, what did my agent get me into?” To give the film credit, it is not supposed to be Citizen Kane – and it does not try to be - but it would have helped if there was the least bit of conviction from the cast or direction. It is never sure of what it is trying to say, and by the end you get the feeling that it was not trying to say anything. The moral of the story is…everybody wins? Happily ever after endings are good for fairy tales and Disney movies, but this sort of ending in this setting just feels forced. The methods and motives of the film become increasingly impure as the running time trudges along. If nothing else, it functions well as a date movie. It requires no real attention to know what is going on, and is a light hearted innocent distraction. Just do not expect there to be anything to talk about when you are walking out to the parking lot. It will have faded from your memory by the time you turn over your ignition. RATING: 2 PROS: Decent performances CONS: Cliche, slow, and uninspired ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: http://imdb.com/title/tt0402894/
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Jan 9, 2006 03:50
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