Joy and I attended an anniversary celebration for our campground owners who rented a small town theater to screen Love in the Time of Cholera. I completely missed this movie when it originally came out. Period pieces can be a real hit/miss prospect. I didn’t go in with high expectations, but I believe this movie was saved by the fact it was made before the modern era of wokeness ‘bloomed’, back in 2007.
Javier Barden also stared in No Country for Old Men the same year, and you couldn’t have cast him in two more opposite roles. From the psychopathic Churgin to the hopeless romantic Florentino Ariza. That said there are familiarities, as both directors take advantage of Barden’s natural ‘creepy’ nature to maximum effect.
It’s a complicated story of young love where Florentino is ultimately rejected by his lady love after being seperated by her father for a decade. She goes on to marry a prominent doctor but never really reconciles her love for Florentino, who has decided to lessen his loss by sleeping with (literally) hundreds of women and keeping detailed logs on the events.
It’s a wonderfully written, well acted movie that likely couldn’t have been done in todays politics, and that’s unfortunate as a lot more stories out there are ready to be told, if only producers had the courage to tell them.
Magnificently shot with impeccable costuming and set work. Placed primarily in an unnamed Caribbean port city and Cartehena, the producers captured the feel of that era perfectly, especially as the other main character is, as you guessed it, Cholera.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and not just because the bare breast count was staggeringly high (though that helped maintain my interest through slower parts), but due to their sticking to accurate portrayal of the period without any visible attempt to alter history for a ‘more modern audience’.