As someone who hasn't read the book

Rating: Null/10 (1 May 2001)

As someone who hasn't read the book, I was very impressed with this film. I got the chance to take part in a question and answer session with the director (John Madden), and he explained that there were reasons why he couldn't stick rigidly to the book. By all means i believe that the film has romanticised the book, but I thinkit works well. I thought Nicolas Cage was very good as was Penelope Cruz as the loyal Pelagia.
Madden seems to have captured the light and feel of the Greek island perfectly. I also liked the use of the local cephallonians (bet ive spelt that wrong!!) they bought the local character into the film perfectly. Watching Captain Corelli's Mandolin has inspired me to now start reading the book, a film that does that can't be that bad.