A love story against a sweeping backdrop of epic proportions

Rating: 7/10 (19 January 2008)

This is a 'big' movie but despite the historical background it is essentially a love story. The chief characters are Yuri Zhivago, a poet and doctor and a member of Moscow's upper class and Lara, the middle class daughter of a dressmaker.
The two lovers don't really come to know each other until they both serve at the front during the war as a doctor and nurse, and they don't actually become lovers until still later in the story. The reason I didn't give this film a higher rating is because, while I think the movie as a whole is riveting and wonderful to view, I can't agree with what I perceive as the insistent viewpoint on the part of the film's creators that the love between Zhivago and Lara is a pure, noble and wonderful thing. I also don't see the character of Lara as particularly noble or admirable, nor for that matter that of Zhivago's.
While it can be argued that Komarovsky's seduction of Lara is largely his fault, he being an older man (and her mother's lover), it still takes two to make a wrong of this nature, and she continues to let him bully/make love to her. She then tries to kill him at a party by shooting him, thereby confirming the implication that he is her lover, particularly to her mother who has already tried to commit suicide over the situation.
Later she has her famous affair with Zhivago, knowing full well that he is married, with a son and another child on the way. Zhivago's lust for her seems to overshadow any loyalties or love for his wife and children. Lara herself is also married and has a daughter, although she is separated from her husband at this point in the story.
These are not two people whom I would consider fine examples of humanity, despite the fact that Zhivago apparently immortalized their love in a series of poems.