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Love in the Time of Cholera
New Line Cinema


5.7

based on 29 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 22 votes
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FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for sex content/nudity and brief language

Starring Javier Bardem, Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Benjamin Bratt, Catalina Sandino Moreno, John Leguizamo, Laura Harring, Fernanda Motenegro, and Hector Elizondo

Based on Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel García Márquez' novel, Love in the Time of Cholera is one of the world's most romantic stories. The drama traces the Job-like vigil of Florentino Ariza, who waits for more than half a century to claim the hand of Fermina Daza, the woman he loves. (New Line Cinema)

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Romance
WRITTEN BY:	Ronald Harwood
DIRECTED BY:	Mike Newell
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 18, 2008 Theatrical: November 16, 2007
RUNNING TIME:	138 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

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...

The New Yorker David Denby

It’s a well-crafted, handsome period piece, and pleasant to watch, but the intensity of an obsessional style--something that matches Florentino’s crazy single-mindedness--is beyond Newell’s range. The director of “Donnie Brasco” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral” doesn’t paint with the camera; he doesn’t seize on certain visual motifs, as he should, and turn them into the equivalent of a lover’s devotion to fetishes.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

When characters are required to grow old over the course of a decades-spanning story, as in Love in the Time of Cholera, it's still a hit-or-miss proposition whether the combination of makeup and performance skills will convince us that a character is 40 years older than the actor.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Sometimes less truly is more, and Love in the Time of Cholera is proof.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

As one unfamiliar with the novel, I found it hard to tease out its meaning from this handsomely mounted, well-acted, aggressively elliptical adaptation.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

"Love" would be intolerably boring were it not for the frequent injections of humor, thanks largely to Hector Elizondo as Florentino's uncle, and for Bardem's ultimately winning performance.

The Hollywood Reporter Sura Wood

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.

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

This romantic drama by director Mike Newell preserves the odd playfulness of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's international best seller but sacrifices its eroticism and intricate nonlinear plotting.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Stephen Cole

Today, the 1985 novel is the No. 1-selling paperback in North America. Sadly, the movie is a bonfire where the novel was a blaze of fireworks.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Newell has done some fine work in all sorts of genres, from “Four Weddings and a Funeral” to “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” but in “Cholera” he seems to be chronicling a half-century of events, passions and desires as a tourist, not a native.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Newell's rendering of the iconic novel is dull and creatively off-kilter, lacking the surreal magic and robust passion of Márquez's signature magical realism style and never fully engaging the viewer.

New York Post Kyle Smith

If you've seen "Gone With the Wind," you've seen what Love in the Time of Cholera isn't.

Variety John Anderson

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.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Newell's film arrives loaded with problems. The most superficial, but undeniably distracting, involves the way characters age at different rates and under makeup of varying believability.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

More mediocre than magical.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Lush, extravagant, sad and touching, Love in the Time of Cholera still feels weirdly insubstantial when all the febrile passion has abated. Like a fever it breaks, passes and is forgotten.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Eventually arrives at a lovely place, but it arrives limping. Small but nagging problems drag it down, such as weird acting choices, bizarre casting and strange aging makeup.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Little of the fragile wisdom with which García Márquez imbued that idea has survived this timid Hollywood treatment.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

That, after all these years of playing hard-to-get, the novel has made it to the screen in the form of a plodding, tone-deaf, overripe, overheated Oscar-baiting telenovela smacks of just the kind of deliciously ironic prank an 80-year-old Colombian Nobel laureate could really get behind.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The movie version of Love in the Time of Cholera doesn't have the drive or the dynamism to be an artistic nightmare. It's more like a dead dream, the kind that leaves nothing more behind in the light of day than a sickly cloud.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Forget the heat of passion: The movie never breaks a sweat.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

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.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Faithful to the outline of the novel but emotionally and spiritually anemic, it slides into the void between art and entertainment, where well-intended would-be screen epics often land with a thud.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Is there another great modern writer so hard to translate successfully into cinema? Saul Bellow? Again, it's all in the language. The only thing Saul and Gabo have in common is the Nobel Prize. Now that's interesting.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Huge in scope and beautifully shot on location in South America, this ambitious production is undone by terrible casting choices.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Newell has followed up a respectable adaptation of a Harry Potter novel with an ignominious translation of something more delicate and literate. It's hard to recommend this movie to anyone except perhaps the MST3K crew.

Village Voice Robert Wilonsky

Easily the worst adaptation of a major novel by a Nobel Prize–winning author. Easily.

Austin Chronicle Toddy Burton

Not surprisingly, it’s better to just read the book.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

As for the splendid Spaniard Javier Bardem, now knocking socks off in "No Country for Old Men," his lot is worst of all. He's miscast as the romantic Florentino.

Premiere Ryan Stewart

What doesn't work at all -- saving the worst for last -- is a ship-sinking performance by John Leguizamo as Lorenzo.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.7 (out of 10) based on 22 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Carol B. gave it a9:
Loved it. A beautiful love story. Javier Bardem is imazing in that he can play the patient, kind lover in this movie and the crazed killer in "No Country for Old Men". Incredibly talented actor.

Ashley G. gave it a1:
I just watched this awful movie on video. Anyone who manages to assemble this wonderful and mostly Latino cast but have them speaking English with horrendous accents about a story taking place in the heart of Spanish-speaking America is condescending. Condescending towards English speaking peoples who otherwise may not "understand" the story. Condescending towards Spanish speaking peoples who otherwise may think less of the film. A missed opportunity. Read the book as it respects language, whatever it may be.

Luis P. gave it a7:
A good attempt to adapt one of the greatest books of all time, but fails exactly where t shouldn't. We don´t feel the poetry, the passion or the love that comes through in the book and that is the worst thing it could happen to these magnificent characters. The fact that in the movie the character of Dr Juvenal Urbino is nothing more than an arrogant day time soap opera dandy doesn't help either despite the excellent work from the actors involved. A movie like this deserved someone like Giuseppe Tornatore behind it as this anglo-saxonic approach almost sinks the whole thing due to an absolute lack of emotion. Although the last 15 minutes are really very good and that, the cinematography and the actors save the film. Nevertheless if you forget there´s a book behind , the movie is a nice romantic story. You just have to get over those "speedy gonzalez" accents that plague the dialogues. Nice attempt but i hope someone outside Hollywood makes a remake of this someday as this story deserved to be as emotional as Cinema Paradiso was on the screen and unfortunately this time it´s not. But if you like the book, you must see this anyway, so don´t expect to much and you´ll enjoy it nevertheless.

Chad S. gave it a5:
"Love in the Time of Cholera" flunks its litmus test. Audiences aren't supposed to laugh when Florentino(Javier Bardem) tells Fermina(Giovanna Mezzogiorno), in all seriousness, that he'd been saving himself for her. Even though Florentino got lucky more times than the alpha male in a tribe of black howler monkeys, those women(622 to be precise, but who's counting? Florentino, apparently, that's who.) were encounters that, albeit fun, left him unfulfilled and lonely. It's not a lie exactly, but it sounds like one, when in fact, Florentino's pillow talk is supposed to be a declaration of love, and that's the major reason why "Love in the Time of Cholera" tickles our funny bones instead of touching our hearts. Florentino is supposed to be tortured. Each woman he beds is not Fermina, but he doesn't seem sufficiently tortured. Maybe the film needed more cholera; more dead people. Sex, then death; sex, then death. You never feel the spectre of cholera hovering over the characters in this movie like you do in the Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel. Ultimately, you don't get the sense that Florentino's life was all that horrible. He got some. He didn't get cholera.

Katie M. gave it a2:
I haven't read the book, but I am familiar enough with Marquez's other works to know what kind of atmosphere the director was attempting to recreate. Needless to say, the attempt failed miserably. What resulted was a shmaltzy and tedious storyline that even Javier Bardem couldn't redeem. I will also never understand why directors insist on close-up shots when their actors are plastered with comically bad geriatric makeup. Where was the editor?? I'm giving it two stars because at least it made me laugh.

Stephen H. gave it an8:
The cinematic interpretation of Gabriel Garcia Marques' novel "Love in the Time of Cholera" is a wonderful exposition on the theme of the virginal soul: that essence of himself that the protagonist [played by Javier Bardem] saves for his true love. What the film lacks in passion it makes up for with a brilliant musical score, photography, sets and faithful attention to the novel's main theme. After all, who can really come close to the range of emotions, passionate intensity and overall texture of this great novel?

Aaron L. gave it an8:
A sweeping movie across generations, filled with poetry, beauty, and love. Tickling, thought provoking and ultimately romantic.

Love in the Time of Cholera New Line Cinema

Love in the Time of Cholera
New Line Cinema