The Lovers

I was surprised at the bad reviews when I started watching the film. A lot of effort went into this production, with good acting, an interesting story line, time travel, adventure and history. The chase to save or kidnap the queen kept me glued to the screen. It was a thrilling roller coaster for about three-quarters of the film. The last quarter gave mixed messages, jumbled conclusions and added more loose ends. Where was the director, did he fall asleep? The whole story hinges on an underwater discovery of a sunken British ship. What ship? Who was on it? Who drowned? The last time we saw the rings they were in the hands of the two characters in 1778 in a forest in India. How did the rings get on a ship? Not by the dead character in the forest! The last quarter of the film simply sinks the movie.

While researching on the Great Barrier Reef, Josh Hartnett is injured and rendered comatose. His wife, Tamsin Egerton, is distraught beyond words. But Hartnett is unaware of this. He is in a dream state in which he is an officer in the East India Company in the 18th Century. While his bosses are in a war to gain hegemony over the subcontinent, fighting goes on, and Hartnett and a woman fighter, Bipasha Basu, travel together and fall in love.

Roland Joffe directs, the visuals are superb, the actors are fully committed and up to their roles. And the script is a piece of romantic junk out of a bad romance novel, with a desperate attempt to give it some depth by reference to quantum entanglement that brings people together over the centuries. It doesn't work. It's shocking that Joffe, who has directed some great movies about the power of simple, decent emotions in the context of great and horrifying events, could have fallen for this. I suppose that's the problem with great artists. When they're right, they're magnificent. When they're wrong, they're horrifyingly bad. Here, Joffe was horrifyingly wrong and bad.

The score is terrific, the scenery is gorgeous, the acting is mostly pretty good, and the story is... nonsensical.

There are two story timelines. The opening story timeline is set in the fairly near future, sometime later in the 21st century, with what appear to be Americans. But we spend very little time there. The main story timeline is 18th century India.

The backdrop of the main storyline, in India in 1778, was interesting and realistic, except that the British East India Company leaders were all hopelessly one-dimensional villains. The lead roles were well-played, the lead characters were sympathetic, and the story was drew me in.

But when you tell a great, big, long story, it ought to have a point. It ought to have something to do with the climax. This one left me wondering, "what was the point of all that?"

Plus, there was almost no meaningful connection between the two timelines. It just didn't make sense.

And the story made a promise that it didn't keep. At the beginning, we see an interesting artifact -- a ring -- in the wreck of a long- sunken ship. Someone with the initials "D.E." must have greatly valued it, we're told, because he or she drowned while clinging to the purse which contained that ring.

So, who was D.E., we wonder, and what was his story? The next scene takes us back in time, to 18th century India, and we settle back expecting to learn the story of D.E. and the ring. But we never do.

We do, indeed, hear a great long story -- but we never find out about D.E. and the ring, or how it got onto that shipwreck. That was very annoying.

And what's with the two names for this movie, anyhow? Is it called "The Lovers" or "Singularity?"

As Maxwell Smart would say, "missed it by THAT much." I'll be generous and give it a 4, mainly just because I liked the music.

This is essentially an epic love story which was supposed to have transcended time and space. Josh Hartnett plays dual characters: one as a diver/archaeologist type in the 21st Century and the second being a Scotsman working under the British colonials in the Indian subcontinent in the 17th Century. Tamsin Egerton plays his wife in the 21st Century and Bipasha Basu plays his love interest in 17th Century India.

Having read an interview by director Roland Joffé about the film, I was expecting much more involvement of quantum physics to be present in the film. Not necessarily the entire film to be explaining the theory but at least more play on parallel universe and different realities. I was expecting more sci-fi along the lines of the Source Code or Interstellar. Instead what we got was Titanic crossed with Bollywood.

If you are a sci-fi fan then you may be disappointed but if you are a romance fan then you may enjoy the film. Think Time Traveller's Wife, The Age of Adaline and other paranormal romances.

It was in the pre-production for over a decade, before reshuffle and recasting happened with the existing one. It was supposed to be an Indo-Aussie joint production, but later the Belgium production company joined the project. After the several hurdles it managed to get completed. It was an Anglo-Indian historical romance-drama, during the British raj in India about betrayal, coup, revenge and a journey movie. Also simultaneously set in the modern world focusing an archaeological couple who discovers a lost ancient Indian jewel in a shipwreck. From there the story gets a perfect beginning, later moves back to India.

I don't understand what's with the Chinese music where the actual story take place in the 18th century India. It was so good and blends well, but that does define India or Indian culture while narrating its story. If you are not familiar with both Chinese and Indian musics, then it's not an issue at all. But that does not it, the names are Hindu and Indian soldiers with the Persian costumes, swords and other gadgets.

How the name 'Dragon's Throat' came to Indian geographical area and surname for the Indian characters in a wrong princely state. Like that, many stuffs make no sense, especially if you are from that part of the Earth. I think the research was very poor for making this movie. They should have hired an Indian musician and costume designer with an historian.

"Love has many faces, and one of them is jealousy."

The quality was top notch, the cast and their performances were excellent. But I could not stand for Bipasha Basu's facial expressions. She was always been in a sad face look, so depressing. That is the way her character was developed, so nothing wrong in her display. It was her international debut flick as well, and the launch was so disappointing. Because the story was very weak, maybe very silly. I have never seen the narration set in the ancient India other than in the Indian films. Quite amazing locations, and convinced with the visuals that how the 1700s' subcontinent would have looked like.

The major problem with this flick is that people can't get ending. How the time barrier was broken to pass through another timeline was never explained. The Hindu priest/saint/sadhu who blabbers about the space and time was a ridiculous than intellectual briefing. So this film owes lots of explanation to the viewers than entertaining them. I want to favour it, but I also want to be honest. The film was not like I was hoping for, very excited for the merge of historical subject with sci-fi, but did not stand tall. Thankfully, either it was not a bad movie of the year, I've seen even worse that I felt not to review. I won't recommend it, but there's a slim chance that you might like it, so choose it carefully.

5/10