Love in the Time of Cholera

Directed by
Mike Newell

Ronald Harwood is not Edith Grossman. Ms. Grossman is a translator by trade and it is her interpretation of the poetic writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, which have brought his works to the English-speaking world. Harwood has taken the story and taken some of the poetry out of it, but Garcia's mind still shines through to some extent.

The film begins, unlike the book, with the death of Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt) from a fall from a tree. His wife Fermina (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) is heartbroken, and she's scandalized when a strange old man named Fiorentino Ariza (Javier Bardem) arrives and declares that he's been madly in love with her for over half a century and now that she is free, it is the time to declare it.

As she tells him where to stick this declaration, the film slips into flashback mode, to the mid/late 19th century, where a very young Fiorentino(Unax Ugalde) first lays eyes on Fermina(who is still played by Ms. Mezzogiorno) and falls madly in love with her. Fermina's aunt and constant companion Hildebranda Sanchez (Catalina Sandino Moreno) agrees to help mediate a romance, something Fiorentino's mother (Fernanda Montengro) heartily approves of. Unfortunately, Fermina's Lorenzo(John Leguziamo) does not, and takes her away to the Columbian hinterland.

When she returns, she does not love him anymore, and Fiorentino begins a lifelong, hopeful vigil, while his love marries Dr. Urbino and raises a family. Fiorentino changes actors, gets a job with his uncle Leo(Hector Elizondo) and bides his time by screwing every woman he can get his filthy paws on. Still he remains pure.

The acting is good, especially considering that many of the actors aren't that good speaking English. The Latin American accents don't really add that much to the proceedings, although it gives Elizondo and Bratt a chance to do costume drama, but the real problem is that Ronald Harwood cannot match the poetry of Edith Grossman's translation, much less Gabriel Garcia Marquez's original.

Still, this is not a BAD film, and if one is a fan of the book, or one wants to have learned conversations about literature, is worth a look as a substitute for reading the original, as it's rather faithful to it despite the beginning.

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