Love in the Time of Cholera

I first heard of Love in the Time of Cholera through the musings of Rob Gordon in High Fidelity, "Hey, I'm not the smartest guy in the world, but I'm certainly not the dumbest. I mean, I've read books like 'The Unbearable Lightness of Being' and 'Love in the Time of Cholera', and I think I've understood them. They're about girls, right? Just kidding. But I have to say my all-time favorite book is Johnny Cash's autobiography 'Cash' by Johnny Cash." With one of my favorite characters from one of my favorite movies endorsement (of sorts) I have been wanting to read the book ever since...
Well, I haven't read it. But I did see the movie!

The film is about girls...kinda...and love and cholera and a lot of time. What I appreciated about the movie was the simplicity that we rarely see in films these days. The cinematography, the directing, the editing, the storytelling... it all was subtle and unobtrusive. The restraint shown by the filmmakers magnified the two best parts of the film: the superb acting by Javier "Be Still My Heart" Bardem and the emotion of the story and its characters.

Bardem is truly amazing as he shows his diverse range as an actor. He made a character that I might find completely lacking in veracity into a man that I found endearing and even relatable! His heartfelt smile broke my heart every time I saw it. Bardem made his character (or maybe it was just him...) the man I would want to pine over me for 50 years.

There are two critiques I have of LinToC -hm,cool acronym. Love in the Time of Colera, the sequel: Lintoc. 20 years have passed since Florintino wooed, woed, and wrote... Now, there is a crazed killer on the loose chasing down women who marry rich doctors, then sleeps with all her girlfriends... The only man who can stop time, cure cholera, find love, and take the killer down is: Lintoc. Coming soon in 2012. - Okay, sorry about that, back to the critiques...

One part of the film(and maybe this stemmed from the book) that I found lacking was the character development of the women in this movie. Women made strange decisions with seemingly no motivation or reason. I found this frustrating, but maybe it was merely an attempt to honor the mystery of my gender.

The second... romances make it so hard to live my unsentimental life in apathy. It's sad to think there isn't someone who would dedicate themselves to me so completely, as Florintino did to his great love.

And I guess my last criticism is that Lintoc might never be made. Such a shame.

In the end, I did enjoy the time I spent watching Love in the Time of Cholera. Watching Bardem fall in love, in melancholy, and in bed was perfection. I'm running out to B&N now to get the book so I can read it on my flight to Salt Lake (Shout out to my cuziez and my home boys!!! You know who U R! ...bathtub? Bry?)and maybe then I can come to hope that Someday My Prince Will Come. If the novel doesn't do it, I'll just read Snow White!

Well, there you go. Next time I'll take my Ritalin before I do a movie review and maybe we won't go from A Love in the Time of Cholera and end up at Snow White!