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The Review - AT THE MOVIES with WILLIAM HALL
Published: 20 March 2008

Giovanna Mezzogiornio is at the centre of the Cholera love story

Lovesick as disease is forgotten about!

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA
Directed by MIKE NEWELL
Certificate 15

NOW here’s a title that’s hardly likely to drag you into the cinema – which would be a shame.
It disguises a sprawling saga of unrequited love that begins in Colombia in 1879 and continues for half a century, with an outstanding performance by Javier Bardem, unrecognisable from the ice-cold killer he played in No Country for Old Men.
At 139 minutes, it’s a long, hard journey, saved from terminal boredom by a sensitive script from the distinguished screenwriter Ronald Harwood.
Bardem ages 50 years, from a love-struck young telegraph operator in Cartagena to a wealthy ship owner. But he never forgets the girl he fell in love with on sight (Giovanna Mezzogiornio), a haughty beauty who warms to his amorous advances, most of them in the form of exquisite love letters that would melt any woman’s heart.
When she dramatically spurns him, unaccountably dismissing their innocent liaison as “illusion”, the poor chap’s world is shattered and he never recovers.
She goes her own way, marries a rich trader (Benjamin Bratt) but still feels haunted by that first fresh taste of honey.
Barden is always there in the shadows, watching, waiting, ageing into a confirmed bachelor with a ravenous appetite for beautiful women – though he’ll always swear to her that she’s the only one he ever loved.
As for that title, much of their romance is played out against an outbreak of cholera, a sub-plot I found totally superfluous.
But then, the course of true love never did run smooth.

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