http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/feb/23/new-york-winters-tale-review
I can't believe how rotten some critics can be when they don't enjoy a good mythical romance movie. Colin Farrell's latest - "Winter's Tale" is enjoyable finery that will transport weary souls to an adventure set in the Victorian era and the modern-day.
"Winter's Tale" is similar to other films that I've liked with Farrell - check out "Ondine", a story about a woman who may or may not be a mermaid. It combines the dreary lives of ordinary people with the extraordinary mist of the unknown and unseen; something that many people ignore, call fanciful, and attribute to idiots. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's creative people who dream that give us something to think about, tales to tell our children, and dreams that transcend the boredom of endless movies about money, wealth and power.
Farrell carries out the chore of being a leading man and a romantic figure with grace and humility, his sometimes handsome and other times ruggedly animalistic face are an endless well of well-acted emotions that drag the viewer in and capture every moment of every scene.
The additions of Russell Crowe and Will Smith are humorous and rude in the extreme, casting Crowe as a demon and Smith as Lucifer for laughs and the underside of their own personal traits was genius. Crowe plays the demon to perfection, reeking of misery and anger, he is revolting. Smith as Lucifer could have been a bit smoother; instead of a t-shirt he might have worn a shark-skin suit and been a little more suave (like Pacino's in "Devil's Advocate"), but he was adequate for the task.
Jessica Brown Findlay was charming, but was so beautiful and so perfect that she goes somewhat unnoticed as an actress. She appears as a bit of fluff, a pretty feather, and fails to make an impression until her death scene. Looking more sick would have given her some credulity, but the makeup team somehow thought that keeping her "flush with fever" might accentuate her role. When Jennifer Connelly steps up later as the lead female she's hardly makes an impression; she's yet another piece of fluff in a movie that needed much better actresses. One female cast member who was on screen for only a few minutes managed to eat up the scenery, outshining even Farrell, and that was Eva Marie Saint. Her every move was perfection, her diction perfect, her performance so material that one could reach out and grasp it.
The overtones of reincarnation and "star-stuff" were fanciful, but the general idea of the movie was one of hope - something we are desperately in need of today.
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