Nausea, excessive thirst, glassy eyes, vomiting, rapid heart rate and diarrhea: no, these are not the side effects of a bad meal - they're the symptoms of cholera. Ah, cholera, the most romantic of infectious diseases ... right?
While a diarrhea epidemic might not sound too lovey-dovey, romance is exactly the genre of "Love in the Time of Cholera," the new movie based on Gabriel García Márquez's bestselling novel by the same name. The adaptation, directed by Mike Newell, centers on Florentino Ariza (played by Javier Bardem) and his 50-some-odd-year quest for the love of Fermina Urbino (Giovanna Mezzogiorno).
Beginning with the death of Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt), Fermina's husband, the film uses flashbacks to tell the story of Florentino and Fermina, eventually coming full circle back to Juvenal's death - and beyond.
As a young man, Florentino falls deeply in love with Fermina, the daughter of a wealthy mule driver, played with a complete lack of subtlety by John Leguizamo. Fermina and Florentino are not allowed to marry because of Fermina's strict father, but Florentino makes a vow of fidelity to her and the two keep their flame burning by exchanging letters and telegrams. Eventually Fermina ends the romance and marries Urbino, a wealthy doctor who specializes in treating the cholera epidemic that has a hold on the region.
To heal her son's broken heart, Florentino's mother sends him off to a village so remote that its distance from Cartagena is measured in time rather than miles. On the riverboat there, Florentino discovers the joy of sex after his vow is broken against his will in what is possibly the mildest rape scene ever put to celluloid.
Following this revelation, Florentino returns to civilization and proceeds to fill the void in his heart with 622 flings, affairs and trysts, making him the Wilt Chamberlain of early 20th-century Colombia. But, he always keeps his "crowned goddess," Fermina, in mind.
Florentino ages and becomes successful and respected, but even as an old man, he continues his affairs, unable to forget Fermina. On the day of Juvenal's funeral, Florentino arrives at Fermina's house and proclaims his love once again. Over the next three years - time moves fairly quickly at this point - Florentino and Fermina bond once again. This leads to the ending which, though it would be a crime to ruin, does contain a riverboat, a sunset, a voiceover and an original song by Shakira, who contributed three tunes to the film's soundtrack.
Over the course of the movie the characters grow old, some convincingly, some not so convincingly. The standouts in the cast are Bardem as Ariza, playing the foolish, heartbroken lover perfectly, and Hector Elizondo as Don Leo, Florentino's "lucidly demented" uncle.
The film comes in at just under two and a half hours, and while this is significantly less time than the 53 years, 11 months and four days that Florentino suffers while waiting for Fermina, it is a long running time for this film, which drags at a few points.
The cinematography is rich and the vibrant colors of Colombia pop off the screen. While the period sets sometimes clash with the not-so-period dialogue, they do a passable job of transporting us into the past. This is especially important in this movie because the plot, with a little finagling, could work anywhere: boy falls in love with girl, boy can't get girl, girl meets new boy, boy has series of random hook-ups to forget girl.
While the characters go through every emotion imaginable, the viewers' heartstrings remain mostly un-tugged, a disappointment from a film that bills itself as "the greatest love story ever told." It is also a little more than slightly sappy. Call it "The Notebook 2: Cartagena Nights" if a comparison is necessary, but be warned, where "The Notebook" (2004) showed the spiritual side of elderly love, it has nothing on this in terms of physical elderly love.
It's difficult to recall any film that has so graphically depicted the physical relations of septuagenarians. While this isn't to say the ideas Newell is attempting to convey about the eternal nature of love are not romantic, the sight of sexually active 70-year-olds is quite the mood killer.
If your love life is indeed described above, you could probably do worse than "Love in the Time of Cholera" for a date movie. But fans of the book, turn-of-the-century Colombia and good movies, steer clear.
