L'histoire de l'amour

I don't know the novel, but from the hints of the film I could gather that the novel must have some deep appeal and intrigue. The film adaptation lacks any of that. The different layers of the story hardly make sense on their own, becoming only shorthands and clichees with little emotional impact. The episodes are longish and loose sight of the bigger picture. Production value and acting is good though, only the script lacks finesse.

In the old world, country girl Alma (Gemma Arterton) is loved by three boys; Leo, Bruno, and Zvi. She makes Leo promise to write about his love for her. In 2006 NYC, Léo Gursky (Derek Jacobi) is a grumpy old retired locksmith. He is trying to contact his estranged author son over his autobiography and desperate to find a book called, "The History of Love". Bruno Leibovitch (Elliott Gould) is his neighbor friend. Alma Singer (Sophie Nélisse) is named after the Alma in the book. Her mother Charlotte (Torri Higginson) and her late father fell in love with the book. Her little brother believes himself to be one of the 36 righteous Lamed Vovnik in Judaism and is building an ark. She's in love with Russian boy Misha but she insists on staying friends. Her mother is hired to translate "The History of Love" into english.

I know nothing about the book. I'm sure it's a romantic epic. This film is ambitious in its ideas. This could be a great movie concentrating on Leo. There is this story about Alma Singer which does not measure up to the epic romanticism of Leo's story. Adapting from a novel is often ambitious especially when the adapter is reluctant to use an ax to chop out sections. Alma Singer's story is probably necessary for the book but not for the movie. With a great veteran like Jacobi, this needs to trust his ability to take over the screen. It needs to be a character study of this grumpy old man. This could have been amazing but it needs someone more daring in adapting the material.

On can only hope that this film servers some purpose by being used in Film 101 for film students to see all the possible attributes of definitive bad adaption. I have to say I enjoyed the novel. The novel *tries* to be original, self consciously so. One gets the sense the author had made a study of non-linear timeline work and threw in some Proust and painful immigration and old age stories. Still the novel is worth a read, it is complex, and average to above average work

But the film is a complete mess. Two thirds or more of the narrative complexity and intersections, which are precisely what makes the novel interesting, are lopped away. Amazingly the film still is disjointed and jarring, and instead of being easier to follow -- now simply full of narrative holes.

If you've read the book, this movie will be painful beyond all belief. It will prove sometimes good authors cave for monetary reasons and give up the purpose of their novel for some cheap big screen existence. All that was beautiful in the novel, the true symbols and emotions was stripped apart to bit and pieces of modern gimmicky references. Stilen names of characters and brief concepts of ideas was all that was left. A innocent girl in love with her family turned into a moody teenager, a sweet sad old man turned into an angry spout of distaste, and a sad beautiful mother turned into a crazy agoraphobic? Did the author lose the rights to her book in a card game? They left out the actual history of love...

Its awesome how this film manages to twist and bring together its multi-layered story. Really heartwarming. Especially because you actually don't like any character of this movie. They are cute and you feel with them, but there isn't someone who is clearly the hero-main character. I really enjoyed it, all of them have there small personalities and mistakes. But you cant stop watching because of this.

They cut out one scene with the young Alma, which i would regret as a cutter, because it clarifies the motivation of young Alma on the point, where i had some struggles to understand her only with the movie, though i have to say, you can understand her motivation only with the movie as well.

Everybody who likes a heartwarming story with multidimensional characters and a multi-layered story, i can hardly recommend this movie.