Winter's Tale

I give this movie a 7, but only for the acting (several of my favorite actors and actresses are in it) and because I first saw this movie before having read the book. After having read the book, and having enjoyed it, I can say that the movie is light years different from the book and only uses its most basic outline. Certainly I understand why this is the case, trying to film 700 pages of dense and descriptive prose in 2 hours is impossible.....especially when so much of it is fantastical in nature. The movie is not a total failure, but it IS a total failure of adapting its source novel. Scorcese turned down filming this because he said it was "un-filmmable". He was right.

As the reviews indicate either you'll love it or hate it. I loved it, my wife hated it. Quite a turnaround considering I wanted to see Robocop, but it was her turn to pick. Slow and confusing in the beginning but picked up speed after the first encounter of Peter and Beverly. The Characters were immediately likable and the two child actresses were captivating. Russell Crowe was great as Demi-Demon Pearly Soames. The visuals were terrific. It kind of made me think of Titanic with Demons, Angels and even a Pegasus replacing the Boat. All under the winter NYC backdrop. Pay attention to the dialogue because there were several of those "oh wow - that's what that meant" moments later on.

I give the film a 6 because of the incredible performances, and I took 4 off because the studio signed off on this script.

The film leaves out how they fell in love.

In the novel, they spend more time in her home on more than one occasion, they make love the first time they meet. And after they arrived at her father's winter home, they tie up a carriage to their horse so Peter and Beverly can take the kids for rides around the frozen lake. One evening they take them across the lake to a tavern with music and drinks so the kids can dance.

Little Willa falls asleep in Peter's lap on the way home. Beverly's heart melts.

Peter Lake's upbringing in America shouldn't have been passed over. He was raised by a local native tribe in the city, until he was sent out to discover the world on his own, ended up in an orphanage for Irish orphans, and thus he developed an Irish accent.

That's as much as I'll get into. I hope I've provided some context. And shame the studio that wasted all of the great talent with this script.

I went to see winters tale this weekend and I had so many different emotions when I watched it. First, Colin Farrell is wonderful...he's really great in this roll as a thief but also as a man who falls in love. He really makes you believe he's this character. Of course all the other actors and the surprise cameo all really worked well together.

Not gonna lie I cried a few different times in the movie, I laughed, and felt so many other things while watching. I'm also a secret hopeless romantic so this movie is great for my fellow love story lovers. Honestly I knew from the previews it was going to have a spiritual and magical story line which I really liked. It's nice to watch films that make you think afterwards and during. So don't go expecting to see a typical story line, because that's not at all what you will get.

When you go see this movie which I definitely recommend, have an open mind and just appreciate what you're watching, honestly it's moving!

I wanted to love this movie. Really, really wanted to. Winter's Tale is my favourite novel; but, I didn't want that to get in my way - I went in with an open mind. I knew that lots would have to be cut out (or else the movie would be 27 hours long!), and focusing on Peter Lake and Beverly Penn was obviously the right decision. BUT, then why would Akiva Goldsman ADD something? The totally ridiculous Judge/Devil character, played by Will Smith, is an invention that was very poorly chosen - it destroyed the magic. Parts of it were good: Colin Farrell is brilliant as Peter, Russell Crowe is a fiendishly wonderful Pearly Soames, and William Hurt is perfect as Isaac Penn; yet parts were bad. Although she is a great actor, Jessica Brown Findlay is woefully miscast as Beverly. Do yourself a favour, skip the movie, and instead go and read all of Mark Helprin's novels.