Love in the Time of Cholera Reviews

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[Highly rated reviewer]

Makes Eastenders Look Good

Must be in the running for the worst-movie of 2008.

Telegraph-operator [morse-code] Unax Ugalde [Goyas Ghosts] falls madly-in-love with Giovanna Mezzogiorno [AD Project] at first sight then procedes to romance her with a succession of love-letters, much to her father Javier Bardem [No Country For Old Men] disapproval.

Setting-up his daughter with respected doctor Benjamin Bratt [Catwoman] she relents & marries, preserving the family-reputation. Ugalde takes solice in 'servicing' a succession of hookers, bored housewives, students... until the death of Benjamin, some 5-decades later, when he tries to revive the romance...

Set in late 19th & early 20th-century South America this movie is geared to driving many to alcohol & phoning The Samaritans.

Many foreign-movies are highly-enjoyable [e.g., Esprit D'Amour in Cantonese; that I do not understand so rely on subtitles]; LINTOC makes BBC TV soap Eastenders look like good entertainment.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Should had been in Spanish !!!!

Well crafted movie, great history.,

Good photography: Beautiful landscapes, excellent recreation of Cartagena, Colombia.

Good Acting: All the actors did an excellent job, In my opinion John Leguizamo was not at his best but anyways he only appears for 8 minutes.

Hard to understand: People that say this is a bad movie or that this is a waste of time,

Only one thing - the actors should had spoken Spanish .. !!! Beautiful movie .. beautiful lovestory and there is nothing wrong with romantic movies ... too many violent movies around and the they get the awards - we have made violence to entertainment - so a romantic movie sits very well with me.

A well done serious movie, recommended and a pleasure to watch.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Boring beyond belief

Half an hour into this, you will wish you HAD bloody cholera!!!!!!!

Disappointing

I absolutely loved the book and have read it from cover to cover innumberable times and was really looking forward to the film. What a disppointment! The acting was awful...reminiscent of Channel 5 soap opera 'Sunset Beach', and the film really should have been in Spanish with subtitles. This film is an embarrassment to the book. I've given 2 stars because I thought the costumes and production were good, but this does not make up for poor story-telling!!

[Highly rated reviewer]

Such a shame - such a waste

How anybody could make a film in this way today, is beyond me. Unless, of course, it is in homage to all that was poorly done in the 1970's. One almost expects Burt Reynolds to come waltzing in at some stage - come to think of it he could have played the father. Such a waste of talent too in what could have been a decent film. Too many incongruencies and petty mistakes make the whole thing such a shame. If you start to watch and continue in the hope that it is going to get better........wrong - it just gets worse!

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Don't watch it

Books are always better than the film, I can take that, but this is not the issue here. This is the worst film I think I have every seen. some of the performances border on pantomime, the characters are not likeable or loveable and the granny and grandad sex at the end just makes the entire film a farce. I just could not believe how badly it was done.

[Highly rated reviewer]

None of the atmosphere of the book

Not a patch on the book. It is a formal rendition of the story but with none of the atmosphere, intensity, claustrophobic quality of the original. The acting is wooden - and the make up is terrible. I did not believe their ages at all - it was young people playing old. The politics of the text - the endless civil war and the role of the church have vanished. If this had been made by a Latin American director, or a Spanish one it would have been so much better. Worth seeing if you have read the book - just for the experience - but otherwise don't bother.

poor relation

The book was an absolute joy, this on the other hand, is the opposite. The main character makes your skin crawl: the opposite of the book, the acting is second rate and the dreadful ageing of the actors is like something from a kid's school panto. If you feel like getting this on the strength of the book: don't, keep your memory of the book unsullied.

The positive elements are the filming and the locations but that is all.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Lost opportunity.

This film is very flawed. It seems unsure of what it wants to be, and veers between slapstick and romance. Some dreadful casting. The book is so brilliant, and would have worked well as a film - iit was unfair to do this to it.

Slow but good

I throughly enjoyed the film. Near the end is not so great but the actual ending helps tire in with the title. Great scenery too.