Pretty But Passionless

Rating: 6/10 (10 June 1999)

There is oh so much to like about this movie. Visually, it's stunning. The performances are all good, and I like most of the actors okay. The music by Gabriel Yared (one of my favorite film composers) is wonderful. In the technical aspects, it's great. My best friend, who is European, absolutely loves it. But when I watched her "The English Patient" video, I had a hard time caring. Frankly, I was bored. It's okay to have unlikable characters in a movie, and sometimes even have them be your protagonists, and if they happen to be star-crossed lovers-hey, even better. That's sort of unique, or at least not as cliched as most other romantic relationships in film. But I just couldn't really care about what became of these people, not because they were "immoral" but because they were boring. I keep on thinking maybe I should watch it again and see if it grows on me. Some movies are like that. As for the Academy Awards, well, this movie is done very well. But it sort of makes me sad to think that a pretty, passionless picture like this is considered the best that was done in an entire year. When you assemble the makings of a great film and then execute it in bloodless fashion, something like "The English Patient" will emerge-a movie that is somehow less than the sum of its parts.