Product: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Two-Disc Special Edition) (2006)
Rating: 3.0
From Someone Who's Read the Book
I know it's not really fair to compare a book to a movie, and I've heard before that if you're interested in both you should always see the film first, that way you're not let down with the way it was adapted from the novel. But in this case, I read the novel first so it's impossible for me to not judge the film in that light.I don't know whether to blame the casting or the acting/direction, but I wasn't happy with any of the main characters. Daniel Day Lewis, who I normally like, plays Tomas with a constant smirk on his face that makes him hard to take seriously. In the novel, he's an intellectual, but in the movie he seems like nothing more than a confused male who's obsessed with sex.Juliette Binoche's Tereza seems like a caricature. In the book, she's a sad, somewhat innocent woman from a small Czech town. In the movie she's played like a typical French ingenue. She seems like she would fit better into Amelie than she does in Kundera's masterpiece.Lena Olin's Sabina is not as bad, but she still seems to lack the sensuality or seriousness of the character in the novel.Of course, there are many things that are left out from the book, and that is to be expected in any adaptation. The movie doesn't spend very much time on Sabina in Switzerland. The character of Franz is just glossed over, and the part about Tomas having a wife and son is completely left out, which may seem forgiveable, but in reading the book I thought the fact that Tomas had been in a failed marriage made his womanizing a little more understandable.None of this is to say that the movie is without merit. There are some spectacular scenes and moments, and it's hard not to be touched at times. But it all just feels a little rushed, even in 3 hours. This could have easily been a mini-series and perhaps then the characters could have been developed properly and the viewer would get to know Tomas and Tereza. As it is, it's a good movie that in the end comes off feeling like a slightly less erotic version of "Last Tango in Paris."