Love in the Time of Cholera

"It really does defy belief how someone could take a gorgeous love story and turn it into a farce of a film. The result here is laughable, but I do not imagine that this is what the director had in mind."

"Gabriel Garcia Marquez's much-adored "Love in the Time of Cholera" has been given a translation by helmer Mike Newell that's both too literal and too thorough. Despite a magnificent performance by Javier Bardem, the film not only falls short of the novel's magic, but fails to generate much of its own. Fans of the author, perhaps enlisted through the book's enshrinement in Oprah's Book Club, will be seduced. But serious filmgoers -- "Love's" target aud -- will be neither seduced nor amused, making for an arduous B.O. trek on the upscale specialized circuit."

"Shot on location in vibrant Cartagena, the film's strong suit is aesthetic. Cinematographer Alfonso Beato, designer Wolf Kroeger and costume designer Marit Allen evoke aged exotic locales, rugged rural settings and dimly lit period interiors. A closing, aerial image has a breathtaking, spiritual beauty."

"A quirky, charming unconventional love story."

"Small wonder that One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's best novel, has never been filmed. Watching "Love in the Time of Cholera," based on another of his great works, made me wonder if he is even translatable into cinema. Gabo's work may really live only there on the page, with his lighthearted badinage between the erotic and the absurd, the tragic and the magical. If you extract the story without the language, you are left with dust and bones but no beating heart."

"Lovely, but lacks the poetry and magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' book."

"Is love a disease, as Marquez possibly wanted us to believe? Maybe, but in the case of this adaptation, it’s more of a laughing sickness."

"A complex novel is remade as a superficial historic romance, with no feelings of love or loss evident anywhere. Bardem and Mezzogiorno do their best to generate heat but lack any spark. Fans of the book prepare to be disappointed."