Technically gorgeous but narratively dry

Rating: 5/10 (16 February 2019)

I don't know about everyone else, but I'm a little tired of these two romantic formulas:
1) Woman plays hard-to-get and then suddenly falls in deep love with the man without enough believable development (describes a lot of old-school Hollywood romantic films)
2) a romance that goes awry and one starts sleeping with everyone in town to try to prove some kind of point and the other drinks himself away.
The latter applies more so to this film. Perhaps it would've been a little more palatable if I connected to the characters at all, but in reality, I didn't. I couldn't feel the intensity of their relationship. Maybe it was because of the length of this film and the quick time period transitions or perhaps it was just because the characters lacked that semblance of a real human being but, instead, were just cinematic caricatures.
The historical backdrop was what kept me engaged throughout the film, not the characters and their arc. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with such a critically-revered film from a genre that's usually up my alley. With Cold War, I just walked away with indifference.