Zoya

I saw this movie just yesterday on "Liftetime", and immediately I wanted to know where I could buy it. I was attracted to it at first because of Melissa Gilbert, as she is my favorite actress, but the uniqueness and romance of the film is what kept me interested. I enjoy love stories, and this was a wonderful one. It gave me a new understanding of what effect war has on family and friends of those who fight in it. I truly enjoyed this movie, I recommend it very highly.

I admit that I usually despise Danielle Steele miniseries, but this is one that I feel amazingly tolerant towards.

Believable? No. Historically accurate? Not even close. Still, it's a fairly innocuous way to pass an afternoon should you chance upon in on Lifetime (where it used to appear with some frequency).

I will happily admit that I started watching it because Bruce Boxleitner was my first television crush (this was way back in his Scarecrow and Mrs. King days), but once I got into the story, I realized that it was like an entire soap opera compressed into four hours. If you are wanting to watch something and admire the acting and the riveting dialogue, look elsewhere. If you want a few hours of mindless but still entertaining popcorn fun, this might be for you.

PS--It's interesting to note that the daughter in the movie is played by a very pre-Alias Jennifer Garner.

This is a beautiful love story....but it is also an excellent example of patience, perseverance and never giving up on those you love. It also gives the viewer an insight of how life can make many twists and turns and one must look deep inside themselves to go on and do what is necessary to deal with whatever life throws at you.

It is a story that can inspire young people (especially women) to not be defeated by the curves life throws at them. It also shows how real love can endure through most anything...even death.

This movie moves me to laughter and tears throughout the presentation. It makes me want to pattern my life and ideals after the main characters (Zoya and her husband).

Well, it is. A very romanticized version of life of aristocrats in exile. The funniest moment was when Zoya revealed that she brought the Faberge egg with her into Communist Russia. It would have been confiscated on the border as a national treasure, she wouldn't even have been compensated.

Zoya herself has too many late-20th century values for my tastes. Like her wanting to be a dancer, when most dancers of her culture and era were, in fact, courtesans. Her marrying a jewish man, while tsarist russia was very antisemitic. Well, it's a cute fairy tale anyway.

OK not EVERY Danielle Steele story is the same, but enough of them are that you know what's coming. Tragedy, triumph, death, birth, war, precipitous rises and falls and rises agains, maybe a kidnapping or crash, that sort of thing. The heroine always has hair that is platinum blonde, jet black, or red. No dirty blondes or chestnut browns. She (Steele) has an often misplaced crush on the Aristocracy, even if said class and even actual characters perpetrated horrors or were just plain horrible (I speak of historic figures, not her fictionalized ones, but still). Never mind that, nothing to see here. I'll always have a soft spot for Gilbert, but she is miscast because frankly she isn't beautiful. Attractive, but not beautiful. And they have her cast as a supposed 17-year-old? Just no. I didn't know it was Jennifer Garner playing her daughter. Interesting. She also looks too old for the role, but I guess that's what happens when you have to age as the story progresses. WTH is Diana Rigg doing in this? Nice costumes. Also, I love the guy who played Simon. He's a doll. I think he also played Frank Sinatra in something.