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love sickness
Love in the Time of Cholera
by rick grant    rickgrant01@comcast.net
B+ Rated R 138 min

      In the realm of classic romanticism, this scenario, based on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s best selling novel, suggests that there exists a spiritual love between a man and woman that transcends ordinary relationships. This celestial love sustained Marquez’s protagonist, Florentino Aziza (Javier Bardem), through fifty years of unconsummated yearning for his soul-mate, Fermina (Giovanni Mezzogiomo). In the meantime, Florentino engaged in hundreds of trysts to ease his lovesickness. He even wrote a diary in which he kept track of the number of his sexual liaisons, which topped out at over 600. His last affair was with a college student (40 years his junior) who was devastated when he broke it off.
      Director Mike Newell (Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire), working with Ronald Harwood’s cleverly written screenplay, faced a difficult task in translating Marquez’s tome to the screen. For the most part, he achieved a balance of humor and drama to tone down the overblown romantic theme of the story. At first, Florentino seems like an idiot to hold a flame for Fermina. In a key scene, she looks into his pathetic lovesick eyes and tells him she does not love him and his love for her is only an illusion. Ah, but faced with this final brush-off, Florentina does not give up hope that one day she will realize that she loves him in the same way and their love is not an illusion. Yes, Florentina seems like a stalker, obsessed with Fermina. He is not discouraged when Fermina marries Dr. Juvenal Urbino (Benjamin Bratt) and has three kids by him.
      Oscar-nominated actor Javier Bardem was challenged to portray this character over a whole lifetime. Bardem plays Florentino with subtle comedic dynamics that offset the tendency of the script to wax gushingly sentimental. Bardem gets into Florentinos’ skin with a masterful performance, convincingly showing how this mild-mannered telegraph operator had a way with the ladies, who threw themselves at him.
      As time goes on, Florentino takes a job with his uncle Don Leo (Hector Alizando), a wealthy businessman, who, at the request of his mother, sends him to a remote location so he will forget about Fermina. He continues his hobby of having sex with numerous women, all the while thinking of Fermina. Even as Florentina aged, women were drawn to him. The man was like Elvis–a hunk of burning love.
      Newell faced another challenge of compressing this epic story into 138 min. He deftly used flashbacks to warp time, and in this way he was able to age Florentino without losing the thread of the story. Of course, aging Fermina was another problem. Newell decided on a compromise by being kind to her face for a woman in her seventies. In other words, even as an old lady, she was quite attractive. This was important to the final sequences.
      One of the funniest scenes features John Lequizamo as Fermina’s father. Never mind the fact that he looks the same age as his daughter, Lequizamo is hilarious as a father who is using his daughter to climb the social ladder. This is another example of comedy saving the picture from its tendency to seem maudlin.
      Special love does happen and this script’s use of humor greatly enhances the enjoyment of this love story.

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