Philip Sugarman

Based on Stephan Zweig's great short story, this 40's romantic blockbuster is a dignified study of selfless obsessive love for a self-obsessed person. Directed by a German emigre who read Zweig in earlier times, the film captures manners and hypocracies with great performances with fine cinematography and music too.

A rather shallow fiction, not worth the time

This work is compelling, convincing, and believable, benefiitting from an absence of any type of Hollywood trope or cinematic device. The screenplay and editing are nicely paced and well judged, drawing in the viewer to interrogate the implied storyline and character motivation. The ending is real quality, different and unexpected.

This long tale has some stylish imagery, but the acting is often hammy. The convoluted storyline soon ran into tedium, which all the guns and explosions couldn't lift.

Unbearably awful and ludicrous for an old man to be made to make this ABSOLUTE turkey of a film

This cinematographic presentation of such an important episode in British history is worth watching. The period locations and sets, costumes, language and accents are enjoyable, even as the bloody ending looms. There is some context put into the mouths of real characters, but this is no typical docudrama; rather every thespian on screen has been pushed to overact, some at times to a Dickensian, even Monty Python degree. This conveys not the pathos presumably intended by the leftist director, but instead a kind of comic contempt. It's a shame really.

Sword and sandals drama, with Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley struggling to transcend the paper mache castles and ahistorical storyline. A 12 rating, so violence is muted, as is the narrative power of rhe piece.

This film is trashy and abysmal on a level all of its own, in ways beyond imaginable, and then some. Every scene and plot turn, almost every shot and utterance is amateurish, ill-conceived and unconvincing

By episode 6, this festival of killing, swearing, magical powers and teenage sex is becoming less and less alluring, as it turns into a horror flic. Despite some originality and shock value, it doesn't have the satirical edge and political currency of The Boys. The endless adolescent angst and silly twists wear away the viewer's enthusiasm, leaving the plot and characters increasingly bare and vacuous. Perhaps the critics are charmed by the (albeit welcome) diversity of the cast.

A long slow art movie with a low budget, it is initially drab and vague. Given time, however, the plot crystallizes in quite unanticipated turns and revelations. The result is compelling and memorable, a work of quite serious literary significance.