That was an excellent one.

Admirable film.

A Masterpiece!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I'm on a roll with Henry James stories that have been made into films, but I'm beginning to think Mr. James is a vampire, an undecided one. He places his deep and penetrating insight into rooms high and low, then watches the pulsing carotid artery of his various prey beat slowly. They are living human morsels and he is committed to draining their blood from them… slowly. But instead of flinging his entire self at his victim, per more recent permutations of the blood lusting sort, or ejecting a leaping succulent tongue out to ensnare and devour like a frog in a nature program with unbelievably quick reflexes, he approaches carefully, with all social graces intact and intelligence bright and cold, places his lips on his character's necks, allows his incisors to puncture and mark. Then undecided, he just hangs out there for an hour and a half. You can't hear him drinking, yet once again, so many elegantly dressed and ensconced individuals meet wily doom. The film starts as a forbidden love affair between two lovers whose rising social status is keeping them apart. Then a third character joins them, who knows nothing of their affair, a beautiful but tragically ill heiress. It is not social criticism that ultimately separates the lovers, but the mark of this woman whose real relationship to them both remains a mystery. Oh Henry James, what is wrong with you? Never love, sex, passion, or real compassion, but the dopplganger of these elements in a room full of ghosts and mirrors haunt your stories. A story is not a great story just because you write accurately about difficult hidden things. But this is worth seeing. Its just a horrible, terrible, very good, quite scathing film. Watch it and pray nothing of the sort ever happens to you.

I always love a movie that can take me back in time to a period I can almost escape to. The Merchant Ivory films used to do that for me and my wife way back in the late 80's and early 90's. Now this seems to be the last of this class. Helena B Carter has a way of being in these great epic small movies. I love the sweeping subtle story telling set with intrigue and mystery. The acting allows us to become entranced in the twining of this tale. The meaning of true love is clarified and the ending leaves me adding my own ending to it. I should like to think that a greater deception was underneath the story. I hope others see it as well. I think this is a great movie to sink your teeth in yet the subtle wickedness boils to the top so slowly it leaves you breathless. This movie allows us to see the sacrifices made in society and wealth. All of the characters were well rounded and expressed the spectrum of the personality wheel. Watch it with a loved one in a comfy place with some hot chocolate.

When the film came out a lot of people commented on the way the adaptation shifted the action forward in time to 1910.I was puzzled too but on re-viewing the film it was clear that this was to enable the filmmakers to draw on the more socially aware painting styles of the time. Essentially Kate and Merton are two people who are stuck in the oeuvre of Walter Sickert and want to move upmarket into Whistler territory. But they fail and are doomed to spend the rest of their lives in squalid Camden Town scenes. Incidentally this means there are artistically valid reasons for Helena Bonham Carter getting her kit off--the final scene is pretty much Sickert's "What Shall We Do for the Rent?" with live actors. While this visual metaphor is superbly played out, it is at the expense of James' intricate verbal edifices. The film grates when anyone opens their mouth: as animated paintings, the characters are literally two-dimensional. This is a film which is at its best when no-one is saying anything, and would have worked much better as a silent movie.

I'll confess that this is not entirely my favorite genre. I like some British costume drama's, as long as they have some quirkiness added to it, such as for instance is the case in such movies as "Barry Lyndon", "The Draughtsman's Contract" and "Dangerous Liaisons". This movie is more in the style and mind of a Jane Austen novel, which is just not the type of movie for which I sit down and enjoy watching.But nevertheless that doesn't mean I'm totally blind for the quality this movie got made in. Its Oscar nominations; Best Actress in a Leading Role, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design and Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, are all certainly ones I can agree with. Add to that the costume design and you have the 5 elements that make this a good and certainly perfectly watchable movie.What I like about the story is that it features an original love-triangle. It's not the type of love-triangle you would just expect and it also makes the movie as a whole original not entirely predictable to watch. It's well layered and executed in the movie. It however perhaps too long for the movie to take shape. Basically the first halve of the movie totally couldn't interest me and it was standard, slow and just not that interesting. However the second halve, from the moment on the movie gets set in Venice, really made up a lot for me.The movie is set at the early 20th century, which is not the most usual time period for this type of movie. However, if you would had told me the movie was set in the late 19th century I would had also believed it. Basically it are only the cars and phones that give away that this movie is set in the 20th century. The rest of the movie just feels and looks the same as any other costume drama set during a more common earlier time period. The sets and costumes for this time period are just fantastic. Not just for the Venice sequences but also really for the sequences set in London.The movie is also not as heavy handed as it might sound and as you perhaps would expect. The movie mostly remains on the shallow safe side, until heads toward its very ending. It often makes this a bland and rather formulaic movie to watch, despite its hospitality. I think you can blame director Iain Softley, who directed his movie rather static and standard. Or perhaps blame the '90's, which just wasn't the most style-full period for movie making.A good and certainly watchable movie, that perhaps should had been a bit more bold and edgier in its execution.7/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/