The Golden Bowl
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Movie Reviews of The Golden Bowl
Movie Review: Nothing Golden here.
Summary: 2 Stars
I kept waiting for a twist in this movie that never came. Maybe I just didn't get it. This is my second Henry James novel to movie that I have watched and not enjoyed. The other movie, Turn of the Screw, has a rather disturbing ending. Golden Bowl just ended. I found Nick Nolte's line delivery to be more like he was reading from cue cards. Northam and Beckinsale are the only redeemeding factors in this film.Movie Review: Not so Golden
Summary: 2 Stars
I agree with the reviewer from Cambridge, MA. The only actor I had a problem with was Uma Thurman, who carried no weight or presence in her role. I didn't know who she was or how I was supposed to feel about her, yet the crux of the movie rested on her shoulders. As a result, the movie seemed tepid and dull.Movie Review: would have gotten one star....
Summary: 2 Stars
if it weren't for Jeremy Northam's performance. This movie dragged on and on and on and on... I only finished it because I felt compelled to do so. The characters seemed unreal and the story did not translate well to the screen.Movie Review: Passionate but on the annoying side...
Summary: 1 Stars
Note: If you don't want to know some things about the story you may want to skip my review. It may tell more than you would like to know if you plan to watch it.
This was a well filmed movie. The characters were alive. The actors were wonderful. The scenary was plush and captivating. The story draws you in... but in a very hypocritcal and contradictory fashion.
If the goal was to get you to dislike adultery and have sympathy for wonderful people such as Maggie (Kate Beckinsale) and her father (Nick Nolte)... who were done wrong, then it was written completely wrong.
The story is shown in the beginning from Charlotte (Uma Thurman) and Amerigo's (Jeremy Northam) viewpoint... so right away you have sympathy for Charlotte who is in love with Amerigo, in which her great friend Maggie is going to marry.
Charlotte becomes a character you sympathize with greatly... and in fact you understand the drive behind all of her actions. She met the man, and fell in love with him before her friend even knew him.
I couldn't help but like Charlotte through the entire movie. I found Maggie and her father--people who I would generally like and have respect for, to be very irritating and do-gooders to a point of irritation.
If they weren't father and daughter you'd swear off they too had feelings with for one another. They were so close, it was actually quite unhealthy. I understand closeness... but their relationship... bordered dependency.
As well, I can't say they didn't contribute to some of the actions on the part of Charlotte and Amerigo having an affair. They weren't to blame for it but I think they did indirectly cause some of the problems and their own unhappiness.
You can't just neglect a relationship and expect it to be wonderful when you are good and ready to return to it. It takes sacrifice... and they weren't offering the right sort in order to receive what they wanted out of their relationships.
As for Amerigo. I had no sympathy for him. He was kind, in his own right, made admirable sacrifices, but he was selfish. He spent time taking too much of what he wanted and when it finally caught up with him... he really didn't have to deal with the consequences.
He got off easy while Charlotte took the burden of being a woman in love. That is a very similar outcome to reality and what most women have to deal with.
In that aspect, it really sucked to watch this caring woman be treated and abused by this selfish man who didn't say no until it benefitted him later.
Yeah, there were things I didn't agree with about Charlotte. Selfish things about her too. But at least you could see where she was coming from. That it wasn't her goal to be a bad person. She was just viewed as one because of her actions. But at least you could understand why she was doing what she was doing. She was in love.
She met him first and and loved him first. And begged him not to marry Maggie before he ever did. She was completely relatable.
I could not relate to Amerigo or Maggie's father much. I could relate to Maggie a bit, but not enough without her neurotic notions getting in the way. The woman worried to the point of being annoying.
In the end it left Charlotte. She was outcasted in a manner and treated subtley as if it was all of her fault. Which I immensely disagreed with.
If you ask me, Amerigo was way to blessed for his own good and he should've shared more of the consequences. In the end I couldn't label him as anything else but a jerk.
Generally I would tell anyone who wanted to see this movie to avoid it... simply because it was irritating and the characters weren't really all that enjoyable to know and witness.
Every single one of them were to blame for the consequences in their own way and that includes Angelica Houston's dislikable character who introduced Maggie and Amerigo, knowing full well about Charlotte beforehand.
All of them got on my nerves... except the very person they wanted to blame everything on. Charlotte.
Movie Review: Disappointed Merchant Ivory fan
Summary: 1 Stars
Merchant Ivory is known for costume drama. But this dramatization - and I use the word loosely - of James's The Golden Bowl - is all costume. As beautiful as it is to look at, you still find yourself drumming your fingers on the arm of your chair, waiting for the spectacle, please God, to end. As for the acting, yikes! Why, oh why would any director settle upon Nick Nolte for a major part? In his last several forays in front of the camera, Nolte speaks his lines - indeed, every drawn-out syllable - very, very carefully, but his mind is obviously elsewhere. I do not know what he is paying his agent, but that fee is worth every penny. Anjelica Huston, normally a good, solid actress, was all at sea, and could never quite settle upon her character's accent. Such as it was, it came and went. Uma Thurman played her character as extremely unlikable, even repellant, which cannot be what Henry James had in mind, and which makes no sense dramatically. After all, it was her character, Charlotte, who initiated all the action in the story. Whether this was Thurman's misinterpretation or the director's misguided coaching is anyone's guess. Kate Beckinsale as the wronged wife was completely and utterly dull. Only Jeremy Northam inhabited his part with any credibility. A contemporary Englishman playing an Italian prince, ca. 1903! And you know, he wasn't bad.
I used to (past tense) look forward to the next new movie from Merchant Ivory. But there was always the danger that their style - of a too-reverent, nostalgic regard for the upper-class style of the Edwardian era - would grow ever more mannered, sugarcoated, and lifeless. They are reaching the point where the viewer would be well advised to watch their movies with the sound turned off.