Writer-director Roland Joffe recreates two entirely different and breathtaking worlds: an underwater world with a ship-wreck and the British Raj. Yet despite the elegant cinematography, "The Lovers" was a terrible bore. The problem with this movie is not that the plot amounts to a preposterous love story, with the moral being that uniting two rings together will reunite two lovers. Rather, the chemistry between Jay Fennel (Josh Hartnett) and Laura Fennel (Tamsin Egerton) and James Stewart (Josh Hartnett) and Tulaia Naik (Bipasha Basu) was not believable at any level. As a result, I could not get involved in the lives of any of the film's characters.
Roland Joffe has made great films in the past, such as "The Killing Fields" (1984), but he has lost his way as a filmmaker since then. "The Lovers" sadly exemplifies the continued decline of this once greater director. Aside from the absence of compelling human stories, Joffe makes a number of other mistakes. There are intricate subplots about Indian princely rivalries and the British East India Company's political intrigues without any explanation as to why they are important to this movie. Instead, these subplots become loose ends, which proves that Joffe and the film editors are unable to organize the film's subject matter into a coherent and involving story. This movie also has more than a few action sequences, but they fail to generate any excitement or suspense because the characters who were in danger did not inspire much sympathy. The same holds true for many of the movie's smaller details, including Dolly's whisky drinking which seems strangely out of place. Apparently, there were significant delays over this movie's release because of editing difficulties. Yet having watching the final product, I think "The Lovers" is one of those movies that should not be released at all.
Roland Joffe has made great films in the past, such as "The Killing Fields" (1984), but he has lost his way as a filmmaker since then. "The Lovers" sadly exemplifies the continued decline of this once greater director. Aside from the absence of compelling human stories, Joffe makes a number of other mistakes. There are intricate subplots about Indian princely rivalries and the British East India Company's political intrigues without any explanation as to why they are important to this movie. Instead, these subplots become loose ends, which proves that Joffe and the film editors are unable to organize the film's subject matter into a coherent and involving story. This movie also has more than a few action sequences, but they fail to generate any excitement or suspense because the characters who were in danger did not inspire much sympathy. The same holds true for many of the movie's smaller details, including Dolly's whisky drinking which seems strangely out of place. Apparently, there were significant delays over this movie's release because of editing difficulties. Yet having watching the final product, I think "The Lovers" is one of those movies that should not be released at all.