Mainstream cinema with a touch of existential agony

Rating: 8/10 (24 January 2009)

It makes me sad when a movie had the potential to be outstanding but only turns out OK. I was looking forward to this movie because I loved the novel. It had everything: a good story (the most important element), a good director, talented actors. Yet still the result didn't reach the books complexity, intensity and subtlety.
Why is that? I think it's not enough just to take the written dialogs and put them 1:1 into the movie. The written material should have been better elaborated to visualize the depth of the agony. Too many times words were chosen instead of other visual means - or just silence. Sometimes less is more. If you compare it to The Hours (the middle story with Julianne Moore) you see how the characters are better expressed in a shorter time frame and in a more subtle way.
I liked more the first part of the movie that nicely built up the tension and set the stage. The second part, the final exchange of blows reminded me more of a boxing match (with words and punches) than of a subtle existential denouement.
The actors were good, but not great. I liked Di Caprio's performance almost more than Winslet's, but neither of them could truly reveal the deepest secrets and fears of of Frank and April Wheeler. Sadly the result was too superficial, too conventional in its dramatic outline without any risk taken- almost too flawless.
It should be seen as an elegant and fairly successful piece of mainstream cinema whose main credit is to to give viewers something to think about and as an impulse for the brilliant novel to be read again.
Not bad but not strong enough.