Ethan Frome

Ethan Frome
by John Madden

Ethan Frome
List Price: $9.99
Category: DVD
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Gil Rood, Liam Neeson, Phil Garran, Stephen Mendillo, Tate Donovan
Director: John Madden
Brand: Miramax
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 99 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-01-14
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Miramax

Movie Reviews of Ethan Frome

Movie Review: You can never turn the work of Edith Wharton into a movie!!
Summary: 1 Stars

I knew this would happen, knowing how many books get turned into bad movies, especially the work of literary giants like Edith Wharton. If you are NOT a reader of fine literature, you may like this movie - a simple romance, like millions of other movies.

But if you have read Wharton's classic novelette, one of the finest pieces of work, you would dislike this movie immensely. Wharton was born in 1862 and died in 1937 at 75 years. She won a Pulitzer Prize in Literature for The Age of Innocence.

With a unique writing style, one that absorbs the reader into deeper thoughts and greater description, fine prose, and without rushing through the plot.

The 1993 film's cinematography was beautiful, characters were nothing memorable and the focus of the story was missing, the intense relationships, the gravity of suspense, the extent of the deeper personalities we so became used to. Liam Neeson does a decent job at playing Ethan, but we really miss what and who Zeena, Mattie and Ethan are all about. The book is not about sex or lurid romance, it is subtle. That is what needs to come across in a Wharton based movie, and Hollywood doesn't do that, and you can't expect them to. And reading the book, one can instantly recognizes "movie scenes", predicting which scenes Hollywood will use. Ethan Frome is not meant for the big screen!

If you are willing to delve into dramatic plays, try Best American Plays: 1918-1958 Supplementary Volume Complete for a captivating, engaging, play based on the book Ethan Frome. The play was first staged in 1936 and the adaption of of the book is done by a father and son team, Owen Davis and Donald Davis. This play is wonderful!!!

But, try the book Ethan Frome and see why this should never had been turned into a Hollywood movie. .....Rizzo

Summary of Ethan Frome

Hailed by critics nationwide, ETHAN FROME is the classic Edith Wharton tale of blazing passion and forbidden desire! Screen sensation Liam Neeson (K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER, SCHINDLER'S LIST, HUSBANDS AND WIVES) stars as Ethan Frome, a man torn between his joyless marriage to one woman and his lustful desire for another (Patricia Arquette -- STIGMATA, TRUE ROMANCE, TROUBLE BOUND). His actions soon lead to a forbidden triangle between one love that is, and one that will never be. See what all the heat is about in this timeless story of love, betrayal, and desire!
Here's the film of a novel nobody liked in high school (but probably succumbed to when they read it in later life, as they should). Based on the book by Edith Wharton, it's one of those repressed romances of longing and regret carried out in real time and real life. Liam Neeson plays the humble Ethan, manipulated into marrying a plain and sickly woman (Joan Allen, every bit as good as she is in The Contender), who still manages to dominate him. When she grows so ill that Ethan requires help to care for her, they import her poor cousin (Patricia Arquette), who sparks thoughts in Ethan that never occurred to him with his wife. Neeson has a great fire within, as he confronts an array of possibilities that simply remain out of reach because the alternative is unthinkable in this tight-knit New England community. Arquette bubbles with life, while Allen can freeze blood at 100 paces with one of her icy glances. Slow-moving at times but worth it for the final payoff. Directed by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love). --Mark Englehart

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