Good but very flawed film

Rating: 7/10 (18 July 2001)

This isn't one of those classics that you just have to see. In fact, you could live the rest of your life very happily without ever having seen it, even if you are a major film buff. There are plenty of other films you could see in its stead, and, with the time you would save by skipping this 3 hour and 20 minute opus, you could watch two better films.
SPOILERS
Still, Doctor Zhivago is worthwhile. It is very well directed, as you can only expect from David Lean. The score is justifiably famous. The cinematography is also quite glorious at times. I wish I could say the same for the writing. The film's dramatic angle revolves around an affair between Yuri Zhivago (Omar Sharif) and Lara (Julie Christie), a woman, not his wife, whom he meets and grows to admire during medical services for WWI. Unfortunately, the film never really develops their relationship. I never felt any dramatic weight when the two were separated or when they found each other after long lapses. I am a definite weeper when it comes to romantic epics, but I didn't come anywhere close to shedding tear one during this film. In fact, I was always disappointed that the screenplay (or novel, really) kept pushing Yuri away from his wife, Tanya (Geraldine Chaplin), who always seemed better to me. Besides, as I have said, there really is never a reason why Yuri would abandon Tanya.
Most of these feelings come from the poor character development. Yuri himself is developed decently, but some of his decisions seem unrealistic and forced. The two women in his life are the biggest problem Tanya seems left cold by the writers, and I suspect she is this way just so we end up not sympathizing with her, or at least so we end up wanting Zhivago to go to Lara. But Lara is not well developed either. Her situation at the beginning is very interesting, but after we meet up with her again during WWI, she doesn't really seem the same. Worse yet, the man whom she originally married, Pasha, is swept away during the war to live a different life. We meet up with him a couple of times along the way, but he is only a plot device. Lara never seems affected by his loss. The two characters who do register are supporting ones, Yevgraf Zhivago (Alec Guinness) (Yuri's half-brother whom he hardly knows and only meets a couple of times) and Komarovsky (Rod Steiger).
A lot of the difficulty in character association is the fault of the actors, though. Omar Sharif is good as Yuri, but not great. Geraldine Chaplin, a very underrated actress indeed (she was the daughter of Charlie Chaplin, and, if you wish to see her act in a film, see Nashville, made a decade later), is cruelly underutilized. It is her remarkable acting skill that allowed her character to live at all and that made me identify with Tanya rather than with Lara. And Guinness and Steiger steal every scene they are in, both great at playing characters with ambiguous morality.
In fact, I have to lay a lot of the blame on the general failure of the film on Christie. She is a great actress elsewhere, but she fumbles here. Big time. She plays Lara as someone with deep stares. But those stares, meant to exhibit longing or profundity or whatever come off more as blank and thoughtless. Christie clearly doesn't know what to do with the part. I don't know how early this was in her career, but she was definitely not ready for it. Her character, though underwritten, could have at least seemed passionate towards Yuri, but there is never an ounce of chemistry involved. If you want to see her as a mature actress, catch Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller, where she plays the titular Miller. She's riveting there.
Besides these major flaws, I'd still recommend it to anyone who loves David Lean or epics or even Alec Guinness or Rod Steiger. It is worth watching just for Guinness' subtle performance. But be prepared to sit for a prolonged period of time. If it gets boring, just concentrate on the pretty pictures and music. However, if you want to skip onto some of its descendants, see Warren Beatty's Reds or Philip Kaufmann's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. They both have some similarities in theme and setting with Doctor Zhivago, and they are much more thought out and beautiful. 7/10.