The Golden Bowl | | Cast : | Jeremy Northam, Uma Thurman | | Director : | James Ivory | | Studio : | Vidmark/Trimark | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned | | Released Date : | January 01, 2000 | | DVD Released Date : | July 20, 2004 | | Language : | English (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 09, 2005 | | Summary | The Golden Bore | Content
 | If you enjoy a stultifying plot, wooden acting, and symbolism so heavy handed it will knock you across the room, then by all means purchase this movie. If not, wait for something to come along with Emma Thompson or Helena Bonham-Carter, or anyone who has some business appearing in a costume drama, which no one in this movie does.
Jeremy Northam is Amerigo, an Italian Prince who marries Maggie (Kate Beckinsale), daughter of "America's First Billionaire" (Nick Nolte). Along comes Maggie's childhood friend and Amerigo's ex-lover Charlotte (Uma Thurman), who marries Maggie's father so that she can stay close to Amerigo and muck up everyone's happiness.
The lead actors seem to have set aside any acting talent they may have once possessed in order to deliver their lines like first-year high-school drama class students (except for Beckinsale, who doesn't seem to have ever had any talent to set aside). Uma Thurman bugs her eyes out and tries to carry off an odd amalgam of Bette Davis in "Jezebel" and Lucy Lawless in "Xena: Warrior Princess". Nick Nolte's delivery is so stilted and deliberate, I suspect he may have thought he was getting paid by the hour. Not to be missed is Jeremy Northam's "Italian" accent, which is so bad one expects him to burst forth with " 'At's a spicy a-meatball! " at any second. Speaking of bad accents, Angelica Houston is along for the ride, and her inflection mutates from Southern Belle to Regency country girl, WITHIN A SINGLE SENTENCE. Give this one a pass, and go re-watch a Jane Austen adaptation until something better comes along.
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| Rating | | | Date | July 13, 2005 | | Summary | "I want our happiness without a hole in it." | Content
| Based on the Henry James novel, "The Golden Bowl" is a lavish costume drama set in the early twentieth century. The film follows the personal lives of the four main characters--the penniless Charlotte (Uma Thurman), the impoverished Italian Prince Amerigo (Jeremy Northam), billionaire Adam Verver (Nick Nolte), and his naive daughter, the heiress Maggie (Kate Beckinsale). The film begins in the rundown Italian residence of Prince Amerigo as he shows Charlotte through the splendours of the once great palace. It seems that the Prince and Charlotte have had a romantic relationship that is about to come to a screeching halt. He ends his liaison with Charlotte citing the need to search for a rich wife. His tepid attempts to console Charlotte include the callous advice that she too should seek a rich spouse.
The Prince's hunt for a rich wife is successful, and on the eve of his marriage to Maggie Verver in London, Charlotte arrives. It seems the two young women are 'best' friends from school, and Maggie, who is in the first glow of perfect love, can't wait for her friend to meet the Prince. It's a crucial moment, but both the Prince and Charlotte act as though they are complete strangers. Charlotte, however, grabs the first opportunity to approach the prince and confess that she wants to renew their intimate relationship.
In due course, Charlotte marries the lonely billionaire Adam Verver. He's obsessed with collecting European treasures that are ultimately destined for his hometown, American City. Charlotte is yet another of his treasures. Verver obviously selects her with a connoisseur's eye, and her proximity makes it all the more convenient. Verver is an interesting character. He's made his billions from various factories in America, and he feels a twinge of guilt about his workers. He intends to build a museum as a sort of reward for their labours. He reasons that the workers will be able to come and visit all the beautiful treasures he's collected for them--treasures they would never see without his beneficence. There's a cold calculation where this man's heart should be.
An extremely unhealthy and claustrophobic relationship begins to develop between the four main characters. Charlotte and the Prince are often thrown into each other's company, and they also invent opportunities. Charlotte moves through her barren life always on the edge of hysteria. Just how much the Ververs suspect or choose to ignore absorbs the remainder of the film. So much remains unspoken, but Adam Verver proves to be the master of the sinister threat.
This Merchant Ivory version of "The Golden Bowl" leans towards the lavish soap opera and largely ignores the novel's complex psychological aspects. In spite of this, the plot remains more or less true to the novel, and Henry James fans should be sufficiently pleased with this tasty costume drama to dust off their novel and seek the source once again--displacedhuman |
| Rating | | | Date | March 07, 2005 | | Summary | Works on its own merits, without reference to the book | Content
| The reviews on this film were very mixed. I conclude:
1. If you've read the book, you may not be happy with the film adaptation (which seems to be almost a given with famous literature/authors. Some people just don't like their favorite books messed with).
2. Merchant/Ivory productions are in certain ways victims of their success. Some reviewers actually cited as a mark against this movie that it didn't live up to the usual signature Merchant/Ivory lavish production values...?
3. This film will probably not be your cup of tea if you can't stand a leisurely-paced movie wherein the tension is mostly internal.
Okay - I haven't read the book, don't feel one way or the other about Henry James, and so am willing to approach this movie on its own merits. I am not looking for signature filming motifs from the directorial team. That said, this film WORKED for me, and the reason it did is because, whatever James tried to bring across in his book aside, what the film itself was able to bring across was compelling to me. It affected me, and the ending blew me away on a quiet but deep level.
Yes, like some of the reviewers, it took me a while to get into it - it seemed emotionally cool at first, but I didn't have a problem finding or feeling the emotional undercurrents the film was trying to reservedly and slowly build to, as they started coming out.
The comment by one reviewer that the situation seems irrelevant for modern sensibilities, that if the character was unhappy in the marriage, why didn't she leave, wasn't the point of the movie. Yes, that was a predicament more common at the time the book was written, but to say it doesn't pertain today? I came away with a new moral depth from the movie, and the thought that crossed my mind was "Oh, to be able to deal with a devastating thing like adultery with such class". Before someone says that isn't what James intented, it was more a study of the inward flaws of the the smooth-facaded lives of the upper class, I will join that chorus in agreement. Yes, that is what brought these two couples to the place they're at - I think that's a given, and is obvious. What is special about this movie to me is the resolution. I didn't have the author's motives coloring my view of how this movie was supposed to turn out, so based my reaction ENTIRELY on what was presented in the film. To debate who was more devious, ruthless, or had suspect motives didn't seem to need to be done, based strictly on what the movie presented. I suppose one would need to read the book if one was looking for that sort of soup.
Yes, there were flaws abounding in these two marriages prescribed by the cultural values they were living under and accepted. Charlotte seemed the least willing of the characters to follow these mores, and thus seemed to me to be the most dangerous to this order, and the wild card. The devotion of Adam Verver and his daughter for each other actually helped to cause the adulterous situation - there was almost no room for their spouses in that mutual devotion. The impoverished prince had not taken a true moral stand concerning his decision to marry for money. There were many flaws/complexities/moral weaknesses, but ultimately, it was love that turned it around, not the cultural mores, and THAT is what made it so special for me, and I feel was the message. To me, the symbology of the PURPOSEFUL breaking of the bowl by Angelica Huston pointed to that. The flaw was there in the bowl, by nature. So...she broke it. Nice scene. Perhaps this slant of the movie isn't in the book, but this is what I came away with, having no prior expectations.
The prince's answer to Charlotte at the end, before she left for America, that the dishonor was what horrified him, that he would spend the rest of his life with his wife trying to make up for that dishonor, spoke of a profound moral and emotional decision on his part.
To me, at the end, Charlotte was the only one who had not come to any profound emotional or moral decision, and I was left hoping the new surroundings, at the side of the wealthiest and most revered man in her world, a world where she was going to be feted and adored, was going to bring about a change in her, but I wasn't optimistic, because the mechanism didn't seem to be there for it. But... who knows. If I wrote this review tomorrow, it would probably stress different aspects of the movie. Isn't that a sign of a GOOD movie, as opposed to an entertaining one?
BTW I liked it even more the second time I saw it. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 01, 2004 | | Summary | "I want the bowl, without the crack." | Content
| A magnificent medieval bowl, created from a single perfect crystal, has, despite its appearance, a flaw--a crack which reduces its value. Henry James, author of the novel on which this Ruth Prawer Jhabvala screenplay is based, uses the gilded bowl as a metaphor for love and marriage, focusing on two couples, whose overlapping relationships and marriages prove to be as fragile and damaged as the bowl. Produced by Merchant-Ivory and sumptuously filmed by Tony Pierce-Roberts on locations in Italy and England, the film brings the intensity of the psychological conflicts to life.
Italian Prince Amerigo (Jeremy Northam) is the impoverished owner of Palazzo Ugolini near Rome, unable to maintain the palace until, in 1903, he marries Maggie Verver (Kate Beckinsale), daughter of the first American billionaire, Adam Verver (Nick Nolte). The prince has previously had a secret affair with Charlotte Stant (Uma Thurman), a friend of Maggie. When Charlotte subsequently marries Adam, Maggie's father, both couples move to England, where three years later, Charlotte and Amerigo resume their passion.
The relationships among the four principals are explored with the same sophistication as in James's novel. Maggie's torment is fully revealed when she suspects an affair, and her determination to protect her father from this knowledge becomes an agonizing chore. Numerous symbols help to convey the trauma of the betrayal, from the history of the prince's castle, in which an ancestor found his young wife and his son in bed and executed them, to Maggie's dream of being imprisoned in a porcelain pagoda which has a crack.
Nolte shows surprising subtlety in his emotions as he suspects his wife's treachery, while Uma Thurman is passionate, reckless, and very seductive in her obsession with the prince. Northam explores the prince's character fully, moving from early passion for Charlotte to a more mature awareness of his love and respect for Maggie. Beckinsale, as the ingenuous Maggie, develops maturity and shows remarkable character as she works diligently to protect her marriage and her father. Supporting roles by Angelica Huston and Madeleine Potter further develop the psychological pressures by illustrating the characters' lives within the context of their frenetic, continental lifestyles.
Director James Ivory inserts old kinescope films and newspapers of turn-of-the-century America into the film to illustrate the on-going contrast between life in America and life in Europe, a constant James theme, as Verver builds his new American museum of European treasures. Lovers of Henry James will find this film faithful to James's intents, while those less enamored of his convoluted literary style may be inspired to read him because of the psychological sophistication of this plot--and this film. Mary Whipple
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| Rating | | | Date | November 29, 2004 | | Summary | Excruciatingly Boring! | Content
| This movie was just plain BORING. I am a great fan of Merchant-Ivory films (A Room with a View is one of my all-time favorite movies), but this movie was extremely disappointing in contrast with their other films. I watched it all the way through because I kept thinking 'it has to get better.' Unfortunately I was wrong and it didn't. I haven't read the book, but definitely won't now. It felt like they had all the right ingredients; great cast, great director, and beautiful locations, but they just couldn't pull it all together in the end. I am surprised that there are so many good reviews for this movie, as the only extraordinary thing to me was how dull and uninteresting it was. |
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