Have you ever wondered what a Thomas Kinkade painting would look like if it were turned into a feature-length film? Well, you’re in luck, because that’s basically what Akiva Goldsman’s adaptation of Mark Helprin’s bestselling novel Winter’s Tale is.
Winter’s Tale is a love story that plays out against the backdrop of an ancient, cosmic struggle between good and evil. Colin Farrell plays Peter Lake, a pseudo-Edwardian orphan-turned-petty thief who falls in love after a fated encounter with Beverly Penn (Jessica Brown Findlay), the daughter of the wealthy newspaper magnate whose home Lake is attempting to burgle. But here’s the rub: Lake’s one true love is dying of tuberculosis.
Over the course of the next hour, and through a series of clumsy scenes that were cut together with all of the subtlety of a kindergartener wielding a pair of plastic safety scissors, the audience is let in on the secret of the film’s mythology: The forces of good and evil are very real in the mythological world of Winter’s Tale. The two main earthly representatives of each take the form of a beautiful, flying, white horse and a rampaging, evil mob boss called Pearly Soames (played by the scenery-chewing Russell Crowe, who seems to be having way too much fun with the role). The horse (also called Althansor) and Soames’ missions are simple: Soames has been put on earth to do evil, and the horse is there to stop him.
From the opening scene the audience understands that Soames and Lake have had some kind of falling out, and Soames wants Lake dead. What is less clear is why Soames is so obsessed with Lake’s love interest, the doomed Penn. What the audience gets as an explanation (which comes in the form of a two and a half minute scene between Lake and his erstwhile, Native American, adoptive father [Graham Greene]) is some convoluted nonsense about individual miracles and souls that become stars in the afterlife.
Look, man, I didn’t write this crap, so don’t look at me.
Goldsman’s Winter’s Tale is as gorgeously shallow as any of Kinkade’s bucolic paintings, but even the kitschy paintings contain a spark of warmth that Goldsman’s adaptation can’t manage despite a liberal use of CGI-rendered lighting tricks and Caleb Deschanel’s competent cinematography. Findlay’s calm, acceptance of her fate and the agony of Farrell’s loss are the movie’s only real strengths, but even those are stretched beyond their breaking points. Goldsman takes every opportunity to try and jerk tears from his audience, even throwing a dying, little girl (of cancer, no less!) into the third act for good measure. At this point, though, it’s clear that Goldsman has traded substance for sentimentalism, and it’s hard to scrounge enough interest to care.
Winter’s Tale fails on nearly every level. Its saccharine handling of Lake and Penn’s short-lived relationship is enough to trigger the gag reflex of even the most hopeless of romantics. The mythology, world-building, and supporting cast are so underdeveloped that it all seems like window dressing, something to distract the audience from the fact that the movie’s premise isn’t really all that compelling. And it’s too bad, really. Helprin’s novel comes highly recommended, and I had been looking forward to reading it before seeing this. But Goldsman’s failure proves that a successful film adaptation of even the most beloved, bestselling novel is no small trick. And at the end of the day, at least fans still have the book. But based on what I saw here, I don’t see myself diving into its nearly 700-page depths any time soon. Life is too short, man.
