Winter’s Tale Movie Review – Hollywood’s Sour Valentine’s Day Film

If you have not read the book, use it as a reason to either bypass the film initially and read the book first, or to understand that the screenplay is far and away a huge departure from the intended story.Unless you have no other romantic film options for Valentine’s Day, it’s best you read the masterwork of Mark Helprin (despite his sometimes wordy and redundant descriptions of nature) and experience Winter’s Tale the movie at a later date. In the novel you get a taste of what the turn of the century 1900′s Manhattan could have been like, while the film is a story with too many references and not enough depth to invest you in its characters. If you are looking for a tear-jerker that’s the only reason to part with money and take your Valentine to this movie.

Have you read the book? Great. Now remove the Rainbow Bridge, the Marshmen, Anarindas, Craig Binky, Hardesty Marratta, Mootfowl, Jackson Mead, Cecil Mature (in name only), and numerous other key characters what do you get? Well, not an adaptation of Winter’s Tale by Mark Heplrin but screenplay written by director Akiva Goldsman that should have not been titledWinter’s Tale.

Winter’s Tale is an uncomplicated version of the book that focuses much closer on the love affair between two people from unequal backgrounds than the various supernatural elements in the novel.Their unexpected love takes place in the middle of each lover’s own troubles. As a screen couple, Collin Farrell (Seven Psychopaths) and Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey) work, but the chemistry isn’t there. Collin Farrell in the lead comes up big, while Jessica Brown Findlay comes off unfulfilling. Findlay’s articulate speech is pointed but she feels a bit hollow.

There at two audiences for Winter’s Tale. Aficionados of Mark Helprin’s 1983 New York Time’s Best Seller, and your typical movie enthusiast interested in a romance. In most cases, one or the other is let down. Here, both receive equal fare of distaste.

Some feel it’s unfair to compare a film to a book. But it’s inevitable when a movie is an adaptation.

Here are few spoiler free changes that book readers will want to know.

Lake of the Coherees is no longer a village but a single location.

Virginia Gamely has no relations, nor is she from Lake of the Coherees.

You won’t see Peter Lake throw Short Tails.

Beverly’s ability to subdue and protect Peter is removed.

Winter’ s Tale is being released as a Valentine’s Day romance film for couples. Let’s examine it as such with no bias from having read an entirely different version in the novel. As this writer is fond of romance and is writing his own novel with a huge romantic thread, consider the concept of love as well understood

It’s an epic tale weaving a mystical post Victorian age Manhattan with a contemporary version that lacks soul. We bounce back and forth over the 100 year time span in the first five minutes of film. Collin Farrell is Peter Lake, the future Peter you are introduced to has lost memory of his past self. This is unclear in a flashback to his life in the turn of the century 1900 New York.

The flashback you get has a huge continuity error. The flashback would have you believe Peter Lake knew his infant childhood, yet no one could pass his story onto him. We find a young couple from Europe being rejected entry into New York due to the mother’s illness of ‘consumption’ (terminal stage of tuberculosis). In a move reminiscent of Moses in the bible being given up by his mother, Peter Lake’s parents drop him overboard their ship before it returns to Europe in a small hollowed out replica sailboat.

Again, no spoiler here. The manner in how Peter and Beverly meet won’t be divulged in this review. How they meet and how that meeting evolves is much different in the original words.  But that’s to be expected, the movie has a only a couple hours to compress a lot of detail.

Where the director attempts to either pay homage to points in the book or integrate key motivational concerns they become convoluted by the drastic additions he made to the overall story.
Yet as you are also immediately introduced to the antagonist, Pearly Soames (Russell Crowe), there is a huge alternation to how he and Peter Lake arrived at their differences. Once again,BASED ON would have saved this film from harsh reviews and regardless if that was done or not the story just feels forced and flimsy. The motivation of why Pearly Soames wants to kill Peter Lake is left out of the movie entirely. The only clue you get as a movie goer is that Peter Lake was taken under Pearly’s wing and Peter one day turned on him.Winter’s Tale is condensed, filtered and sanitized of it’s soul. Even without having read the novel, evidence of awkward changes for the screenplay dumb down the original subtle supernatural theme which was ironically as clear in it’s message as it was abstract in it’s delivery.Yes – once again it has to be said this is no spoiler, but for those that read the book – the addition of Pearly Soames interplay with Lucifer is forced to a point that it doesn’t fit into the rest of the story. Perhaps it’s because it never was part of the book. Leaving it out altogether would have improved the movie. In the director’s attempt to pay tribute to every player and subplot left out, he accomplishes the opposite. Forced guidance such as spelling out that Pearly Soames is a demon disrespects the audiences intellect. This was never implied in the book, it’s addition in the movie does not work at all.

You can assert that this is a biased review based on the comparisons to the book but these are not comparisons but rather contrasts that explain the clunkyness of the film which hurt the movie.  Again the addition of Pearly Soames discussions with Lucifer feel out of place even to anyone that has not seen the story before.

As a romance film there are heartfelt moments and the chemistry between Peter Lake and Beverly Penn does have enough strength to bring a tear to some audience members. Collin Farrell’s soft humanity is felt quite often too. Yet, except for a candid conversation among the two men Peter Lake and Isaac Penn which draws an intellectual laugh, there is no humor to break up the tension in the film. Yes, the contrast of the book is once again worth noting. The book had meaningful characters which were lost in the movie. They were not a direct part of the love story, and as such were eliminated. Eliminating so many great elements of the original story killed the journey Peter Lake would take you through. The cinematography alone in Winter’s Tale was not enough to paint the fantastic picture of the magical New York City the author intended as a character in the story. Without that fabric the mystical world Peter Lake and Beverly Penn exist is absent.

Can the director be blamed for this miss? Yes. It’s not a near miss, it’s far off the mark. The saving grace is that Winter’s Tale did not go entirely Hollywood ending. And yet it did.  Again to avoid spoilers it’s well known that in the book has a more of a Casablanca-esque anti-conventional ending. The novel’s ending tied up the many subplots while avoiding clichés. The film goes straight for the clichés as if some producers felt the only way this story would sell is if we obey the rule of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back in the end. The outcome of almost every character in the book was opposite in the film. It can’t be emphasized enough, the story took the story – followed it through and made every character different with different ends in their lives. The winning formula wasn’t followed. Winter’s Tale is a complex supernatural love story with too many important characters to have fit into a short two or three hour film. It’s not written in a manner that would translate into a part one and part two series either. Perhaps it’s best medium will one day be a mini-series a network can allow to play out over five to eight episodes. It’s often said that the journey is the reward and the story of Winter’s Tale is a long journey that cannot be condensed. In this case, spotlighting one part of the journey is not fullfulling either.

Let’s just make one thing clear to anyone that has neither read the book nor seen the movie. The love story in this film takes place in the first quarter of the novel. There are three remaining quarters to the story that thread the love story of Peter Lake and Beverly Penn into the overall journey, but their story is told early and ends early. Well, that’s not entirely true. And yet it is. Now for all those clues and a tease, don’t you just wonder what a book that has three quarters more to say – has to say?