Casanova

Casanova (Director: Lasse Hallstrom)















We visited Hallstrom's career on An Unfinished Life. This movie got released in parts of the country on Christmas Day, so Hallstrom ended up in the 2-movie club, and yes, this is why I felt I needed to review it before my Best and Worst lists came out. We're in 2006 now, and he's still not the last member of the club. Screenplay comes from Jeffrey Hatcher (Stage Beauty) and newcomer Kimberly Simi from a story by Simi and Michael Cristofer (Original Sin, Bonfire of the Vanities).

Ahh, the romantic trifle, how can you honestly critique movies like these anymore? As long as the male lead is charming and has the necessary faults to cause a break-up in the future, and as long as the female lead is beautiful and smart, yet emotionally fragile, and the movie has a happy ending, watch its core audience rave about it as if they've never seen a movie like this before.

Casanova (Heath Ledger, in film #4 of 2005) has been banging Venice girls silly for years. Even nuns can't resist his charms. Finally, though, The Vatican has had enough of the trouble Casanova has caused, and extreme pressure has been placed on the government to punish him for fornication and other unseparated church and state matters. They give him a chance to clean up--he has to marry by the time Carnivale comes around, and that doesn't give him much time. After he initially gets engaged to a girl, Victoria (Natalie Dormer) known for her virtue, he falls for whip-smart feminist Francesca Bruni (Sienna Miller). Of course, being infamous for his conquests, Casanova can't reveal his true name and begins a ruse. Unfortunately for him, Francesca is arranged, actually pressured, by her mother (Lena Olin) to be married to a man she's never met, Lard king Paprizzio (Oliver Platt). Casanova then stages a full-fledged deception pretending he's Paprizzio. Things get even more complex when The Vatican sends an Inquisition to Venice led by Pucci (Jeremy Irons), who want to nab not only Casanova but the man who is writing the heretic feminist propaganga that is circulating around.

This is actually pretty good, but that's where my praise ends because I thought this could have been a much better movie. The farcical elements never congeal into something madcap and really fun, and when it gets close, it's all cliche stuff. I never got the sense Casanova and Francesca were falling in love, which I feel is a requirement for when the obligatory break-up happens and you're supposed to care. Performances are actually very good. Heath Ledger was absolutely different in all 4 films in which he appeared in 2005, showing he's got the chops. This is the first time I've seen Sienna Miller not just be some sexy eye candy, and she's quite good. Oliver Platt and Jeremy Irons are also entertaining to watch.

And that's why it's a difficult movie to judge. It does it's job as a romantic comedy, but I felt like an opportunity was missed.