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Casanova

EMAILPRINTBuena Vista Pictures

Casanova reviews
57
5.0 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 36 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 40 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Adventure  |  Comedy  |  Drama  |  Romance

Written by: Jeffrey Hatcher
Kimberly Simi (also story)
Michael Cristofer (story)

Directed by: Lasse Hallström

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 25, 2005
DVD: April 25, 2006

Running Time: 108 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for some sexual content

Starring Heath Ledger, Sienna Miller, Jeremy Irons, Oliver Platt, and Lena Olin

1700s Venice. He was the legendary adventurer whose amorous dalliances would go on to inspire countless lovers throughout the centuries. She was the most virtuoso writer of her time who was waiting to find that rare man with a true understanding of steadfastness and passion. When Giacomo Casanova (Ledger) discovers Francesca Bruni (Miller), he met his ultimate romantic match, succumbing to the only woman ever to refuse his charms -- until he could prove himself to be one man worthy of her romantic ideals. (Touchstone Pictures)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

91

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

A lovely, mischievous Casanova that will sweep you off your feet.

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88

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Hallstrom gives us a genial interpretation and a supremely good-humored film.

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80

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

A smart and sophisticated comedy romp.

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80

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Lasse Hallstrom (Chocolat) directs a sparking screenplay by Jeffrey Hatcher (Stage Beauty) and Kimberly Simi; it starts as a frothy boudoir comedy but evolves into a masquerade by turns sweetly meditative and sharply satirical.

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80

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

In the exhilarating Casanova, giddy shenanigans effectively set off the dangerous, darker impulses of human nature.

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80

Film Threat Phil Hall

A delightfully silly romp which reinvents the legendary Italian lover's adventures into the realm of broad farce.

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80

Variety Derek Elley

A handsome chunk of widescreen entertainment that's as nimble as its rakish hero.

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80

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Among the least-heralded of the Christmas releases, Casanova is one of the few that's wholly enjoyable.

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75

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

And if real eroticism is missing - this is a Disney movie, with bosoms heaving more in a gentle parody of heaving than in full desire - the great discovery of this Casanova is Hallström's recovered capacity for play.

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75

USA Today Claudia Puig

Casanova is an entertaining if silly romp, with amusing dialogue, gorgeous production design and painterly cinematography. Venice, where the movie is set, has never been so breathtaking.

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70

The New York Times Dana Stevens

In any case, what is on screen is a delightful respite from awards-season seriousness - a feather film, you might say, that actually tickles.

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70

Dallas Observer Melissa Levine

It's a sweet, silly and not unintelligent romantic comedy: For a period farce, you could do worse.

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67

Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman

Hallström's latest is fine but unambitious, content with what it is – an arthouse trifle for the masses.

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63

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

As with his other costume farce, "Stage Beauty" (with Billy Crudup and Claire Danes), Hatcher produces more froth than zest.

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63

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The feisty supporting cast is forced to carry the show, and fortunately, they're more than up to it, notably Olin, Platt and Jeremy Irons.

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60

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Little by little, though, he (Ledger)and those around him achieve a critical mass -- an extremely light critical mass -- and the plot pops with entertaining complications.

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58

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Although Casanova is far from a stinker, I can't join in the chorus of praise for what is essentially a coy farce replete with arch performances and even archer dialogue.

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58

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Unfortunately, the goofiness never quite finds its groove. The romantic chemistry is tepid, the comedy misses as often as it hits, the picaresque plot keeps dogging down and even actors as skilled as Platt, Irons and Lena Olin fail to register strongly in their roles.

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50

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

That the new Casanova lacks such wit is fatal. Heath Ledger is a good actor but Hallstrom's film is busy and unfocused, giving us the view of Casanova's ceaseless activity but not the excitement. It's a sitcom when what is wanted is comic opera.

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50

ReelViews James Berardinelli

What happens when movie producers cross "Three's Company" with "Masterpiece Theater?" The result would be similar to what Touchstone Pictures has provided with Casanova, a farcical romantic comedy period piece.

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50

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The movie cries out for the bawdy, rompy air that filled Richard Lester's "Three Musketeers" movies, and what it gets instead is the same dispassionate "professionalism" that has made Hallström a steady fixture in a Hollywood that could do with an infusion of Casanova's own virile lifeblood.

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50

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A period romp that tries too hard.

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50

New York Post Kyle Smith

Don't confuse the 18th-century Vene tian setting in Casanova with sophisti cation. The film's one-dimensional characters and lame one-liners make it a sitcom with petticoats.

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50

Washington Post Desson Thomson

The movie Casanova, starring Heath Ledger, not only fetters the randy Venetian in political correctness, it condemns him to dwell inside the modern equivalent of a bad Shakespeare play.

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50

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

At best, it's a light, boisterous little confection, but hasn't Hugh Grant already starred in this film a few times?

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50

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A light film, airy, likable and set in Venice.

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50

The New Yorker David Denby

When the credits were over at last, I sighed, and took away a moviegoer's fantasy of Ledger and Miller starting work again, far away from Venice and ball gowns, on something that might be worth seeing.

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50

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Miller gives the film's one genuine, focused, committed performance, and you can see why she might even reform a rake of Casanova's standing.

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50

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Casanova doesn't seduce so much as lull the audience into a stupor with tedious blather about the battle of the sexes, intermittent but pointless swordplay and clumsy slapstick.

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50

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Jeremy Irons slithers on board with a haughty sneer and papal vestments, playing Bishop Pucci.

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50

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

The story, as so often in bad farce, treats them all as idiots, so it's almost impossible be engaged by anything other than the pretty rooms, gondolas and costumes.

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50

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Ledger's comic flair is a big plus in a film that is fanatically busy and fatally sexless.

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50

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

This Jeffrey Hatcher-Kimberly Simi version, directed by Lasse Hallström, has a resemblance to some of Casanova's memoirs but is chiefly based on the assumption that, in a costume drama, anything goes.

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40

Empire Dan Jolin

Occasionally fun, always pretty, completely a mess, Casanova never quite finds its footing.

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38

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

The movie treats trysting as comedy and yet is stingy with the laughs.

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20

Village Voice Jessica Winter

Ledger's deadpan baritone pumps wit into his tepid one-liners like collagen into a wilted starlet's kisser, and the clumsy staging might not grate so much if the tone weren't so self-congratulatory.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 40 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Hitchhiker C. gave it a1:
Add asinine silliness (of Hilary Duff proportions) to Hallstrom's usual life-is-beautiful banality, and you should have a pretty good picture of how this trashy excuse for a movie goes!

Jane D. gave it a9:
This is an awful, stupid movie. That said, I saw it twice in the theater just for the Oliver Platt/Lena Olin subplot. They are insanely adorable.

David Z. gave it a7:
Very enjoyable. Don't expect wonders and watch a likable tale.

Ken G. gave it a3:
A mess. The filmmakers were clueless as to how to handle the subject matter, which had no business coming off as slow, dull, and plodding as it does. Fimmakers might have intended to have fun with this premise, but they had no idea how to do it. The love story between Ledger and Miller is so clumsily handled, that it just doesn't work.

Gary B. gave it a9:
A Venetian caprice in which Guardi and Caneletto are brought to life in an operatic buffo plot of delightful visual and dramatic allure. One of the delights of the year.

Carol Y. gave it a7:
Entertaining frothy romp. Good acting by even minor characters.

Mark B. gave it a6:
It's ironic that this sporadically lively, frothy period romp about the famous Italian lover is a near-miss for two different but interlocking reasons. Very simply, the title performance absolutely does not work: even giving much allowance for the plot requirement that Casanova has to constantly elude various legal, clerical and other establishment figures without being recognized, Heath Ledger's stiff, humorless performance is absolutely not what the role calls for. In fact, from a technical standpoint his work here is not all that far removed from his stunning work as a taciturn, inarticulate cowpoke attempting to deal with forbidden desires he didn't know he was capable of having in the current Brokeback Mountain, but while that breakthrough performance was Brokeback's emotional anchor, in Casanova's instance it weighs this movie down in far less satisfying ways. That's a real shame, bacause much of what's going on above, below and around Ledger is a real treat; director Lasse Hallstrom (My Life As A Dog) has spent the last several years of his life doing so much well-acted but overrated Oscar bait for the Weinstein brothers as The Cider House Rules, Chocolat and The Shipping News that it's really an enjoyable surprise to see him working with a lighter touch than we've seen since ABBA: The Movie! Jeremy Irons, playing an officious, self-righteous priest on Cas's trail is tremendously enjoyable, playing him as a cross between Snidely Whiplash and Jeffrey Jones' hapless high school vice-principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Sienna Miller, as our hero's fiery intellectual as well as romantic/erotic match, is so vibrant and joyously sexual that I found myself asking more than once if Jude Law's got a screw loose or what; Lena Olin matches Miller's appeal and adds an irresistable blend of slyness and subtle vulnerability. And then there's Oliver Platt, who for the second time in as many moviegoing months steals the whole picture. In The Ice Harvest he actually made chronic alcoholism rather endearing, and here he makes overeating absolutely lovable; if you've made certain dietary New Year's resolutions, beware...because watching an Oliver Platt movie will probably be more detrimental to your faithfulness than attending a Super Bowl party!

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