A Romanic Epic

Rating: 8/10 (3 October 2009)

After the Academy gave the God-awful Braveheart Oscars for best film and director ahead of a number of quality films such as the Usual Suspects, Heat, Se7en, Twelve Monkeys and Casino, they won back some sanity by giving the English Patient nine awards.
Based on a novel, The English Patient tells the story of a horribly burned man known only as the English Patient (Ralph Fiennes) in 1944. He is cared for by Hana (Juliette Binoche), a French-Canadian nurse, who set out to care for the man in an abandoned monastery in rural Italy. The two develop a bond and he slowly regains his memory where he was a geographer in Egypt, making maps of the desert. He remembers having an affair with Katharine (Kristin Scott Thomas) who was married to his best friend Geoffrey (Colin Firth). The affair was the reason for why he was injured. As well as the memories and the story in North Africa, Hana starts to have a relationship with Kip (Naveen Andrews), a Sikh Indian engineer who was in the British Army. But she struggles to truly led herself go. The other person at the monastery is David Caravaggio (William Dafoe), a Canadian Intelligence Operative from Italian descent. He had his thumps cut off by the Germans and he blames The English Patient for what happened.
The English Patient is an actor's film. Many of the actors were nominated for Oscars and other awards, Juliette Binoche even won on for best Supporting Actress. All the actors offered great performance, Ralph Fiennes, William Dafoe and Kristin Scott Thomas are all top talents and I personally thought Naveen Andrews was also very good. The film was also able to blend the flash-backs and present time effective, allowing the audience to follow the plots easily enough. He is a well structured film, with solid writing and direction. The direction is solid. They are some good scenes with some tension and the mystery is reviled slowly. They is wonderful cinematography. But is the film worthy of Oscars for best film and best director? Doubtful in my opinion.
If you like romantic films such as Titanic you should enjoy the English Patient.