Reviewers seem to have struggled with this dramatisation of a sometimes quite modern German novel that came out in 1809, the action being moved from Saxony to a gloriously picturesque Tuscany. I think the problems start with the book, where you have to decide for yourself how serious it is meant to be.
Is the author moving his characters around the chessboard for fun, so we can laugh at their foibles, or is he in deadly earnest about the destructive effects of our strongest emotions? Or should we see a bit of both, enjoying some of the comedy in the initial conflicts of love and duty (to name just two) but deeply sorry at the end over lives lost or blighted? It is a complex work of many layers, too many to discuss here.
A film can only show elements of the story and has to leave out much. Rightly, in my view, it is centred on the basic equation of the middle- aged couple A and B inviting into their quiet lives the unmarried C and D. Sticking to the human trajectory, that goes from innocent love through forbidden love to tragic deaths, it can only hint at or has to ignore many other aspects of the novel: social, cultural, scientific, religious and philosophical.
Perhaps this is why some viewers have not felt satisfied? Is there an appetite for doomed love affairs among rich people in Europe two hundred years ago? I suggest that there will always be if, like this one, they are well told, well cast and well shot (even though the baby's red wig was a bit over the top!).
Is the author moving his characters around the chessboard for fun, so we can laugh at their foibles, or is he in deadly earnest about the destructive effects of our strongest emotions? Or should we see a bit of both, enjoying some of the comedy in the initial conflicts of love and duty (to name just two) but deeply sorry at the end over lives lost or blighted? It is a complex work of many layers, too many to discuss here.
A film can only show elements of the story and has to leave out much. Rightly, in my view, it is centred on the basic equation of the middle- aged couple A and B inviting into their quiet lives the unmarried C and D. Sticking to the human trajectory, that goes from innocent love through forbidden love to tragic deaths, it can only hint at or has to ignore many other aspects of the novel: social, cultural, scientific, religious and philosophical.
Perhaps this is why some viewers have not felt satisfied? Is there an appetite for doomed love affairs among rich people in Europe two hundred years ago? I suggest that there will always be if, like this one, they are well told, well cast and well shot (even though the baby's red wig was a bit over the top!).