Winter's Tale movie review & film summary (2014)

This is par for the course, I'm afraid. I read the book and I often had no idea what was going on in the movie, except that the growing love between Peter and Beverly is somehow threatening to the status quo and Pearly Soames must stop it. I think.

The current-day sections of the film feature Peter Lake, somehow transported to 2014, wandering around Manhattan with no memory. He comes across a kindly woman (Jennifer Connelly) who wants to help him. One might think she had other things on her mind, such her young daughter, who's dying of cancer. Peter Lake also whisks away the dying child on the winged My Pretty Pony, and then there's a scene where he has a huge fist fight with Pearly Soames on the frozen ice of the Hudson while Jennifer Connelly sobs over to the side clutching her dying daughter. Situations that should be touching become laughable. 

Eva Marie Saint shows up in the 2014 section as a newspaper mogul. She has a breathtaking moment where she holds her arms out to Peter Lake. It is a beautiful reminder of her stature in American films. Her presence almost justifies the film's existence. Almost.

The romance between Beverly and Peter is the only well-done plot line. This is entirely due to Farrell and Findlay. Farrell makes the love story work. He is sincere. He makes the hero's pain at Beverly's illness palpable. When they finally make love in a tent on the roof, their passion has an emotional undercurrent that makes the sex scene about something other than sex. They connect. There is a sadness in their connection, due to the shared knowledge that it will be short-lived.

In her review of the novel, Barbara J. King describes the book as a "maelstrom-between-two-covers." and anyone who has loved the source material would probably agree. In the film, the maelstrom is gone, turned explicit and narrow. The novel has a passionate fan base and I (obviously) count myself among them. Akiva Goldsman, who wrote the screenplays for "I Am Legend" and "Angels and Demons", to name just two, adapted the book as well as directing the film. He's made a mess of it. There are a couple of beautiful images (the glowing consumption tents on the top of mansions, the frozen-over Hudson, the nighttime stroll through the snowy forest), but there is no underlying story, there is no narrative thrust, magical or otherwise.

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