An apotheosis of cheese

Rating: Null/10 (19 February 2002)

I am not as much offended by this movie because of its historical inaccuracy. It is true that for all the hype about how the china, carpeting and furniture reproduced exactly those of the Titanic, and how the ship sunk exactly in the way described by the movie, and so on, the plot is entirely fictitious and proud of it. In itself that is not bad, what's bad is how cheesy and cliché this plot is, and that this cheesy, cliché and invented story occupies 90% of the movie's attention, with the sinking of the ship treated as something on the side. The only important people are the main couple, Jack and Rose, her fiancé and her mother. The remaining characters are treated with a disinterest that borders on disrespect. We only get to know that the third-class passengers are fun-loving and warm, and those in first-class are stuffy, snobbish and exceedingly preoccupied with dinner cutlery. Wow, isn't that new! The whole thing is so fake, it was really difficult to get minimally interested.
This movie is the triumph of Hollywood's latest formula, followed also by `Armageddon' and `Pearl Harbor': some action for the boys, romance for the girls, everybody happy (though from the comments I've read here from boyfriends dragged kicking and screaming to see it, maybe I'm wrong about everybody being happy). In the case of Titanic it worked: Leo's fans went to see the movie over and over again, sending its box-office gains into the stratosphere. Truth to tell, it is too much to ask of a megazillion-budget movie like this to be anything but cliché: it just had to be meretriciously agreeable for the largest possible number of people, so anything adventurous, minimally controversial or profound was out of the question.

But, as I said, so many people liked it, so, what do I know? However, if you are interested in seeing something really related to the Titanic, watch the British movie `A Night to Remember.' The special effects are not so cool, and it is in black and white, but it is far more accurate and infinitely more dignified.