Oh...my...
Up front, a disclaimer of sorts: I'm the guy who's always yammering on about adaptations. That when they're done, no matter how the viewer feels about the end result, the source material remains.
Oh, and I'm also the guy who's read 'Winter's Tale' every year since it was first published.
So as I watched this film for the third time...once at the cinema, two at home...I tried very hard to keep the book (and my attachment to it) separate. I tried to view it impartially, as someone who had never read the book.
And I'm still an unhappy camper.
What a mess.
This movie should have been released under another name entirely. Just as 'Simon Birch' was, and not 'A Prayer for Owen Meany'. Because it is NOT 'Winter's Tale'.
As a standalone, it gets so much wrong. It's flat. It spoon-feeds. There is no nuance, there is no deftness-of-touch, there's nothing to feel moved by.
Honestly, I'm surprised it got made.
'Winter's Tale' the novel is an amazing story painted on an incredible canvas. What we saw on the screen...even taking into account the changes that Mr. Goldsman foisted on the script...was barely a tenth of the full scope of the novel. There is no way, not even with three hours to work with, that anyone could do justice to the source material that Mr. Goldsman felt such enormous fondness for that he was compelled to try to bring it to the silver screen.
'Winter's Tale' is a mini-series. At least six hours in length.
Granted, I'll concede that the novel needed/needs a far better job at editing...and this comes from someone who has read it now 31 times...that there are entire threads of the tapestry that could/should be excised.
I'm upset that Mr. Goldsman (and the rest of the filmmakers) showed such (hubris/naïveté/disregard, pick one) in thinking for even one second that making it into a one-hour movies was possible. It's like cutting 'Stairway to Heaven' down to two minutes and forty-five seconds. Or, as in 'Amadeus', when the emperor asks if Mozart could take out a few notes.
deep breath
1...2...3, I'm over it.
Now I can get back to cracking open the novel for 2015...and dreaming of a proper adaptation. Who knows; as a screenwriter, maybe I'll finally give a go at it myself.