Mike Newell translates Gabriel García Márquez’s masterpiece of magical realism to the big screen.
Javier Bardem portrays Florentino Ariza, a latter-day Colombian Don Quixote, one of the greatest fools for love in modern literature.
His performance is at the heart of this sprawling tale of a man’s lifelong passion for a beautiful woman who marries another man. His love rival and counterpart is Juvenal Urbino, a handsome European-trained doctor who marries the object of Florentino’s lifelong obsession, Fermina Daza. Juvenal represents the new era of science and pragmatism and if romantic love is a disease like cholera, Juvenal holds the knowledge and ability to cure it.
The film beautifully portrays the turn of the 19th into the 20th century, in which Florentino represents impractical and superstitious 19th century romanticism.
