Enthralling but flawed

Rating: 5/10 (25 August 2009)

I finally got round to watching this film. I just never got round to seeing it. I love the lengthy epics Like Lawrence of Arabia and Ben Hur so this was pretty much the only gap in this genre I had left.
So now the gap is filled. I Love long films which you can get lost in and this, although over 3hrs, did not seem long. It seemed to grab me and accost me into the Russian Revolution along with the characters themselves. I think the film looked great and Curtis Steiger's performance was very accomplished. Omar Sharif (excuse my spelling on the names) was exactly what he needed to be.
my issues with the film start with the complete lack of empathy I found I had for the characters. Terrible and monumental things happened to these people and I was following the events but the characters gave me nothing to make me emotionally invested in them. Yuri's throwaway family for instance, we see no mourning for his separation from them; he is only distraught that his wife met his lover not that he may never see her or his two kids again. I seemed to feel more for his situation than he did as he settled down with his surrogate family. We spend a lot of time with the good doctor and the ending does seem a little rushed - I needed to know why and how he managed to evade the persecution which forced him into hiding with Lara? After such a long and sprawling film - the ending seemed to attempt to wrap it all up at a jarred pace compared to the film I just saw.
I could have watched another hour, I wanted to know more about what Yuri did and not just have it hinted at by Alec Guiness' character in the bit "tacked on at the end".
I also would have liked to hear some of Yuri's poetry. Overall I am awed but disappointed. I'm sure this film has many followers (in fact I know) but I found the characters vulnerable but never really threatened and how his wife, son and father-in-law; characters who we've invested in, exit the film was wholly inadequate.
All in all, I think many love this film because of either hype or they have had a long running affection for it, what I mean to say is, many film lovers probably came to this much earlier than myself and it was much more powerful than if seen with a more objective gaze. Some may love Lean and so do I but from a naught-to-sixty Doctor Zhivago experience I found it enthralling but flawed.